yandere!bully: he wasn't your bully, not at first. You guys only ever got to know each other because your dad was his dad's employee. Such a circumstanceâand a few othersâgranted you the honor of becoming one of the conglomerate's financial-aid scholars. Another charity case to help polish the company reputation.
You attend the same private academy he does. He tried not to care too much at first; you were just among the few others lucky enough to have the kind of intelligence eyed by his father's company. But that was the thingâyou didn't. You were ordinary.
He wondered if his father made a mistake, choosing to sponsor some no-use nobody. Maybe you were a coal in the rough yet to be a diamond. But weeks into the first year of senior high and you showed no signs of blooming. Hell, you even placed at the bottom list in academic standing. You didn't fail; everyone else were just children of the wealthy who afforded private tutors. Maybe an appropriate scholar would have caught up just fine, but you weren't one.
yandere!bully who decides to approach you, frustrated with your mediocrity. Who is he kidding? He doesn't give two shits if his father made a mistake, he was fascinated with your mediocrity. Greatness no longer intrigues him, having been surrounded with it all his life.
Wow, is this a joke? You really aren't good at anything. Not at math, science, Latin, nada. You just do enough to get by.
He speaks to you about it, about that mediocrity. You interpret it as a threat. You can't lose this scholarship now, you just got it. You beg for his mercy that you may continue studying in this prestigious academy. The whole "I'll do anything!" "anything?" conversation ensues. Now he's got you in the palm of his hand.
yandere!bully who starts it small. Makes you his little errand puppy. To him you were like a little dog running around doing what he makes you do. It can't even be called bullying, everyone else interprets it as acts of gratitude for his father granted the scholarship to you.
But then it escalates. Soon he's making you do things that you hesitate to do. Sneaking into faculty to take a picture of the test answer sheet. Smuggling a bag of "stuff" in school (you aren't dumb, you know what these rich kids got their hands on). Forcing you to skip a day of school so you can be his little errand pup while he did golf, playing truant with his friends.
One time you're asked to kneel before him, right between his knees. You ask why. He tells you not to question him. He only wants to see you that way. He watches you for a moment, unfazed, before telling you to stand back up.
Enter his friends, and things turn for the worse. It's like they've been itching their whole lives to get their hands on a human being to torment. They've got their butlers and maids but they're paid workers; you aren't. Clearly, yandere!bully is dangling this scholarship thing above your head like a golden apple. It's enough to keep you in your place, make you go against your own survival instinct to retaliate against a threat. They can do things to you and not suffer the consequences, and they intend to take full advantage of it.
It starts small, too, this torment by his inner circle, but soon it evolves more than just carrying their shopping bags or retrieving the tennis ball whenever they go play.
Soon they laugh when one of them extends a foot to trip you. They steal the math homework you worked hard on even though they've already completed theirs courtesy of their private tutors. Pour water over your head, pinch your skin for fun with their filed, polished nails.
They heard him call you "errand puppy" once, so they had a collar custom-made with his name on it next to the phrase property of, its buckle 18k gold, leather lined on the edge with lab-grown diamonds. Then they made you drink milk like a mutt out of the cafeteria's metal tray.
The boys cornered you in the locker room once, made you pull down your bottoms. You were crying while they took pictures of your underwear, wet snotty face too. They shared it to the girls and it circulated within their friend group for a while. The next time that those specific guys encountered you, though, they seemed to hold back from picking on you. No one ever made a comment about that incident, not about the photos, the crying, the cheap underwear, and they grew quieter when yandere!bully entered the room.
With his friends it's always physically violent; never with him. You would argue, though, that he is the cruelest. Because he's got the power to make them stop and he chooses not to. He just watches. You gather that he likes watching you a lot.
yandere!bully plays soccer; he's a varsity player of your academy. Every after training you're tasked to carry his school and sports bag back to his luxury sedan which he drives to and from campus. Tonight he makes you stand in front of the goal net. His friends are lined up some meters before you, having gathered all the soccer balls the academy owns.
You're nervous. You know what's about to happen and you should run, but you don't, because you think the scholarship is worth all this.
"Don't let them score and I'll extend your scholarship to college," is all the warning you get.
You're hit everywhere. The arms, shoulders legs, torsoâeverything hurts. One ball after the other to your head, and you feel dizzy. Of course, you try defending yourself; you yell at them to stop, that it hurts, and all you get is: "don't you want that scholarship?"
What made you cease is the blow to your chest. It's a strong hit, delivering a pain so hot you think it shifted your ribs, and you cough and wheeze and they're still throwing balls at you until your form is thrashing on the grass like fish on land.
Your head feels so hot and prickly from the lack of air, you're sure it's bound to explode. Black spots your vision and you literally can't breathe but all you can think of is: did I get that scholarship?
You're hospitalized that night. Bandages on all limbs, tapes to hold the cuts produced from the skin being hit too hard. Nasal cannula around your face.
You wake up slowly. There's a mildly comforting heat on your bandaged hand that vanishes the moment you open your eyes. yandere!bully is seated by your bed, watching you as always.
His hand touches your face. He murmurs something, but it's muffled by the bandages wrapped around your head, ears included. Then his thumb tenderly brushes over your busted lip.
Finally, he leaves the room, and you're left to stare at the ceiling.
Upon discharge, you don't hear anything about dues from the hospitalâa big relief for you. No warnings from the academy either for having missed a week of school. You speculate he's got something to do with it for the sake of reputation. No one is supposed to know that the son of the chairman of such a conglomerate beat its scholar to death's door.
School is different after the incident. You're no longer abused as much by his peers, although you still do their various errands. He still makes you do naughty stuff, like skipping classes when he feels like it. Only this time it seems only he's around to do errands for.
These errands are different now, too. It's not the typical labor-heavy tasks like before, fetching for his tennis ball or carrying his bags. You're more like an actual pet puppy at this point; he just brings you around wherever he goes. Almost like he has to keep an eye on you at all times.
yandere!bully who finds himself missing you during the summer. Everyone left for their own respective vacations, out of the country to Maldives or Monaco or Switzerland or whatever. You're back with your relatives in that quaint little downtown neighborhood of yours. He would know, having hired private investigators to stalk your ass. He is going with his family to the countryside estate.
Father, mother, eldest sister, older brother. He's the youngest. It's a quiet family. Sister grew up just to be like father, cold and austere. It seems he's on the way to becoming just like that, too. Only brother inherited mother's benevolence.
Father doesn't care about anyone and anything but mother. yandere!bully only ever talks to Father whenever it's necessary. Otherwise, both of them are content minding one's own business.
yandere!bully asks Father about you. As he suspected, Father makes no mistake. He says you were really meant for the scholarship.
"I had a feeling," Father says, "that you two would make very good friends."
yandere!bully who's touchier now, second and final year of senior high. Or he's become touchy, since he never was back then. He drags you by your wrist at short distances, a palm on your nape whenever he tells you to look at something. A hand on your lower back, sliding dangerously low every time before letting go. He also often fixes your collar, fingers always ending up brushing your neck.
He tells you to strip one time at some high-end clothing store. You stare at him, dumbfounded, before he gives some silly excuse that it's for a cousin with your same build.
He makes you try on different outfits. At first it's various tops and bottoms that complement your shape, colors that go well with your skin tone, all the like. You glance at yourself in the mirror and wonder if this is how you look born into that top 1%. You look nice.
Then he makes you strip back to your underwear, and lets you try on the white [dress/blazer]. There's a moment of silence before he tells you to come over to him, and he stands up, towering over you with his gifted height.
He looks down at you, seemingly lost in thought, like he's visualizing you in a certain light...
"Do you like it?" He asks.
You tell him that you think his cousin will. His expression is undisturbed, but he exhales almost like a huff. Quite suddenly he grabs you by the waist, thumb gliding circles.
"I asked if you like it."
You stutter out a pathetic 'yes.' Honestly you don't give a damn but you fear his negative reaction your comment. Although if you had to, you'd say it's a bit too fancy for your liking.
He only hums before letting you go. You proceed to wear the next attire.
You shiver to think about how he views this certain cousin of his, having you wear a bunch of skimpy outfits. Some that showed your stomach too much, others exposing your legs. One top you're pretty sure can rival a tape going around your chest area, covering only what needs to be covered. He stays aloof the whole time, jaded eyes planted on you.
After that, things start to get kind of disgusting.
The touchiness escalates tenfold, and he isn't as insecure about it as you are, showing off to his friends. It's like the roles have switched: now he's the physical one instead of them. You're still a slave to their torment, of course, but only he gets to touch you like this. His friends don't find anything odd about it, in fact they look as if they enjoy your discomfort. They egg him on.
yandere!bully who brings you with him to a speakeasy, exclusive only for students of this certain private members club. The top one percent of the top one percent, they would say. It's like a den of iniquities, these kids doing all sorts of nefarious stuff: drugs, dealings, gambling, and most dreadful of all: whores.
Man or woman, they aren't obvious. You only know because they're distinguishable from the rich clients of the club who dress minimalistic. You suppose a more professional term for these people are escorts. They're conversing animatedly with their young clients, some linking their arms with them, a few already making their way to private rooms.
yandere!bully sits on the loveseat across his peer who's got two escorts in his arms. You only stand behind him, listening in on their conversation. Something about stocks and real estate. Networking. If he knew this, what he thinks about that.
You drone their voices out. The smell of weed is getting to you, making you feel all woozy.
yandere!bully tells you to sit on his lap. Dumbed down by the smoke, you comply a little too easily, like the puppy you are. His peer whistles lowly, eyeing you with a predatory glint.
He doesn't do anything about it because he knows they all can only afford to look. The truth is you belong to him, and only he gets to touch you this way, his hand now shamelessly gliding down your rear while you stay pliant. As long as you're after that scholarship, you belong to him.
He shifts you on his lap, his mouth feeling dry as he feels you press against him. You're really just asking for it, aren't you?
yandere!bully: he finds you in the library, when everyone else is in the school gym for graduation practice. This serves as your only safe haven from him, from his friends, from this whole aquarium filled with predatory fish. Oftentimes it feels like you're the only herbivore out there. The library happens to be the oldest part of this castle-turned-campus, which means: no CCTVs.
You scream when he pins you against the table, cut off halfway when he slams a palm on your mouth. The other hand encases both your wrists in one secure grip as his leg forces your knees apart, and he starts grinding against you like a dog in heat.
His eyes are half-lidded as he's watching you with his mouth parted, a sick grin forming. He thinks it's hot when you cry, if he knew this before he would have done better to get you to cry more often.
"Dumb puppy," he sneers, "dumb little errand pup, you're no good for anything at all, aren't you? Only at following your master and fetching balls."
Your panic discourages you from registering all the painful words he's saying, the names he's calling you. You try your best to escape his coil that only seems to get tighter the more you move like a boa constrictor. Arousal seems to give him inhumane strength.
Having had enough, he lifts you up momentarily, before slamming your back against the table, hard.
"Stop fucking moving, you stupid mutt!"
That does indeed get you to stop fucking moving. You even stop trying to scream, and stop... breathing? He pauses his ministrations and looks down at you. You're staring back at him, eyes wide, lips trembling. Then you start convulsing for air.
He doesn't know what to do, and for the first time in his life of luxury and wealth he's genuinely terrified. He's always seen you suffering, but this time, this time you're suffering and he can't put a stop to it. He can't control it.
You're grasping the sleeves of his uniform, still spasming. He gets the hint and aids you in sitting back upright on the table. He already has half the mind to pull out his phone and call emergency, but you're already breathing fine, trying to catch your breath.
Your hand moves to deeply rub the center of your chest.
Shit.
Was this... was this the soccer injury? Haven't you already recovered from that? The doctors said you'd heal eventually. The cuts, the deep bruises. Did you turn out to have an unattended rib fracture? Is this... chronic?
It's been almost a year since that incident.
Have you always had this pain, and kept it to yourself?
He's never felt this level of trepidation consume him, shaking him to the core. His heart is in his stomach as he looks at you, really looks at you, and sees the damaged he's done. You're tired. You're scared. You're miserable.
You are readmitted to the the same high-end hospital not long after. This time you're scheduled for surgery. He covers all the expenses, makes sure to get the best of the best of surgeons out there. You don't really have a say in the matter, you're not dumb enough to refuse such an offer just for the sake of your dignity. What left of it is there, anyway?
Father visits him during that period, noting the considerable dent in his son's bank account for that big of a purchase. He meets Father shortly after freshening up, having vomited at the thought of your broken countenance.
yandere!bully tells him everything except the attempted assault. Father only sits and listens, unnervingly silent, like he understands. It's the first time he's ever opened up to his dad. To his surprise, Father does not disappoint.
Likewise, Father also tells him everything. How, in this family, there is the tendency for some members to manifest passionate emotions in various ways. They feel so little they end up feeling so much for very specific things... sometimes persons. And they tend to be violent with it.
You were meant to be the recipient of this violence. Your father owed his father a great deal of debt, and so you were basically sold off, your purpose for him hidden under the ruse of scholarship. Not that you knew.
It all makes sense now, Father's devotion to Mother, and her aversion from him. His sister's fierce attachment to this one specific guy who also just so happens to be a scholar of the company. His feelings for you which he can't seem to make amends with.
"Once you find that someone," Father says, "you sink your claws into them and never let go, even when they bleed."
You're back to school in two weeks. Like back then, you didn't receive any disciplinary actions for your absence. You try not to wonder how you manage to keep your place as a scholar in this prestigious academy despite all the missed assignments on top of your already mediocre grades.
yandere!bully avoids you like the plague, and so do his friends. It seems everything went back to how it once was, how it was supposed to be. Everyone here ostracizes you for your socio-economic standing but it doesn't bother you at all, not when you prefer this over the active bullying.
The next time he interacts with you, it's already graduation. You're wearing the appropriate formal attire under your graduation robes, which you can guess is the cheapest out of everything in this venue where the school-sponsored grad party is being held. There's an afterparty held at some penthouse bar after this, hosted by one of yandere!bully's friends, but you aren't invited.
You exit the venue to begin the 20-minute walk back to your dorm, but someone stops you.
His hand is on your wrist. You get unpleasant flashbacks, but you keep it to yourself. He asks how you're doing, you say you're just fine.
He then asks if you want to celebrate this milestone.
No, you don't. Not with him. But you're not about to lose your diploma when you just got it.
So now you are in his Porsche and he's driving you both to one of his many family estates. It's smaller than most, he describes.
According to him at least. The whole thing is the size of your entire neighborhood. It's a long driveway before he even gets to arrive at the actual building. He parks right in front of the manor.
Inside, you're invited to have dinner with him. It's only the two of you in this large dining hall, where you're seated adjacent to him at the end of the grand table. But the selection of food nearly reaches down to half the long table, as if he had the chef cook every food that could possibly be your favorite.
Still, you end up eating light. He offers you to choose the brand of wine but you refuse, saying that it hasn't been long enough since your operation. A pause, before he nods, instead picking the wine himself.
Instead of alcohol you're served apple juice. It's freshly squeezed, you could tell by the bitter aftertaste.
Glass in hand, he leads you out of the manor and to the rose garden, where you can see the stars so clearly due to the lack of light pollution thanks to the vastness of his estate. There's a small pavilion housing a large couch. He leads you toward it, makes you sit.
You feel yourself deflate instantly on the cushion, exhausted from having your guard up around him at all times. If he noticed he didn't comment a thing about it. He's on his third glass and you're currently nursing the first glass of apple juice you're nearly finished with, when he calls out your name.
"Congratulations."
You congratulate him, too, since he also graduated.
He downs the rest of his wine in one go, sets it on the side table. Then he steps closer to you, fueled with liquid courage, sinking into the space next to you.
You try to sit up and scoot over. You can't.
"I was afraid for a moment," he starts, "that you wouldn't accept my invitation."
Afraid? He put you through hell, and only now has the gall to hesitate on you? A pit begins to form on your stomach.
He turns to you, taking your glass out of your hand and setting it down the ground, before holding that same hand with his own warmer one. He inches closer. You can't move.
You ask, "Would you have forced me to come anyway?"
He smiles at that. "You wouldn't have said no."
He's now hovering over you on the couch, same standoffish eyes tracing your face, your eyes, nose, settling on your mouth. You see his Adam's apple bob up and down.
He has so much to say to you. You look so pretty right now, basked in the moonlight, not fighting him. He's sorry for all the rough treatment, for hurting you and making you cry. He swears it's just his feelings for you manifested in the wrong manner. But now he knows, after his father explained everything it all makes sense. He's just in love with you.
yandere!bully kisses your trembling lips, tenderly. You try to fight it off but it's no use; you realized too late that he's done something to your drink. You're sobbing when he parts from you, terror and anger evident in your eyes. When he begins to pull off your clothes, he speaks.
"I would never do anything to hurt you." Your stomach churns in resentment. "Never again."
He kisses the column of your neck down to your chest, your surgical scars, where his lips stay longer. When he feels you're sort of hyperventilating, he rises and cups your cheek.
"Breathe. Breathe," he says your name. "Okay? Relax. I've got you. I promise I'll take care of you. You just have to breathe."
He rubs your chest. His own aches just at the thought of your distress. It's his fault you ended up like this, so he intends to make up for it for the rest of your lives.
He makes love to you that night. As promised, he did take care of you. It doesn't hurt when he slides it in, having poured a generous amount of lube all you feel is the pressure instead of the sting of his very well-endowed member intruding you. He's got a way with his hands, too, stimulating all the right parts just enough to get you unfolding beneath him within an hour. He would have done it within minutes but he took his sweet time just to get you so wet and ready for him.
He's so damn gentle with you like he was your lover for the last two years and not your bully. Of course, to you this wasn't 'making love.' For the most part you were delirious both from the drink and his expert ministrations, and are only hit with the the graveness of your reality when he finally spills his essence into you. His body quivers, and right then he pulls you for a deep, tongue-heavy kiss. When he pulls away, he mutters something in his frenzy: "I love you."
yandere!bully doesn't bother you after that. When he wakes up on that couch in the pavilion you're already gone. You left in a rush. A butler drove you off back outside of the estate, having received no orders to make you stay.
You've graduated. Your credentials will surely spark competition among universities for you, being a graduate from one of the most prestigious academies in the world. Still, you ask yourself if it was all worth it.
You aren't the same after those two years. You feel as if you've lost all purpose in life after that night. Like something valuable was stolen from you, and could never be returned. You don't want to keep going.
But reality will always dictate what you do. You can't afford to be like this because you're poor. Mental health doesn't exist to the poor, your father would insist. You've got bills to pay, mouths to feed. And you may be mediocre, but you're not dumb enough to seek justice against someone as powerful as your bully. You don't even have the money for that.
So you went on despite grievances to the next stage of your life: college. Countless scholarships from different sponsors. The same conglomerate that covered your senior high scholarship is offering you another full rideâliving arrangements and allâto the country's number one university.
You refuse the offer this time. A thousand scholarships from that conglomerate isn't enough to repair the damage that's been done. Besides, you never want to encounter anything associated with him ever again.
Instead you accept to be sponsored by a different company; a smaller one (at least in comparison), but they covered your tuition of four years in the same prestigious university. Sure, no living arrangements, but that's more than what most sponsors give.
You enter the CEO's office, having been invited so she can get to know you more. There are two individuals in the room. She, and...
Your heart drops to your stomach.
The CEO introduces him to you, although there is no need for that. He's standing there in a tux, hair slicked back, jaded eyes glinting with mirth at the sight of you. It seems he's grown taller in the few months you haven't seen each other.
Apparently his dad's conglomerate is the parent company. How could you be so stupid?
Madame CEO excuses herself to take an important call, leaving you alone with him. He doesn't hesitate to walk closer, smiling as fondly as his austere face can manage.
"I missed you." He speaks, voice full of yearning. He takes your hand in his. "How are you after our shared night? Why did you leave so suddenly? Don't do that again, love."
Ripping your hand away, you asked why he was here. If he knew and orchestrated to have you accept this scholarship.
"I don't break my promises. I'd hate to start with you." He explains.
You demanded what he meant by that. He doesn't hide the fact that he's enjoying your turmoil, but you can't even find it in yourself to get it together this time.
"No one scored that night." He shrugs. "They were all so focused on hitting you."
...what?
"I promised you your college scholarship, remember?"
yandere!bully who follows you all the way to college.
He was like a rabid dog without a leash. wild and untamed and always getting into some dilemma. its not really his fault though. he was always treated as this dangerous beast where you couldn't even look him in the eye without a hostile glare back. and all these annoying wannabe tough guys looking to see if the rumor of the 'mad dog" was true, just to end up with a broken cheek.
he was used to it at this point. a constant cycle of bark, bite, fight.
he stuck out in crowds, with not only his wide shoulders or his intimidating height, but with his reputation alone. his calloused knuckles and his bandaged face told stories of many fights and unhealed scars.
he knew that with a personality and looks like his, he would never experience something as stupid as love or friendship. that was for weak, sappy guys. and weak was the last word to describe him.
then...how can a weak and sappy thing feel so good ? it was just for a moment, but something bloomed inside his heart when he met you. it felt wrong. he wasn't supposed to feel that way.
it was raining, so all students had to stay inside for this break period. he couldn't even go out for a smoke break. and the closest place to his designated spot was the library, a place you worked at as an assistant.
the door flung open with a loud bang. everybody turned their heads in unison before cowering at the sight of his patch-faced scowl, sticking their noses back into whatever book they were reading.
you sat in the corner of the room, sorting out misplace books. you swear, people never give the time to put books where they belong. and sadly, you had a problem. the final book you needed to sort out this shelf was tucked on a shelf which you couldn't reach. who's bright idea was that !?
so here you were, standing on your toes like a idiot in trying to reach the final book. then, a tall, hooded man passed by you, and "tall" was just more than enough for you to call him over. "Um, excuse me," the man stopped walking, then he turned his head, and beneath the shadows casted by his hood, there was a deep frown.
"What ?" he snarled.
You hesitated for just a moment by his sudden, sharp reply. "You're pretty tall, so can you please pass me that book with the red cover ?" You pointed to a book on the highest shelf.
hah. it was comical. you're really asking a guy like him ? do you live under a rock ? he cracked a sarcastic smile at the though. even so, he grabbed the book for you without a reply.
"Ah, thank you." You said simply, nodding with a small smile.
his mind froze. the world seemed to stop for what felt like hours, but it was only a three second interaction. when you flashed him a smile a bunch of foreign and strange feelings clouded his heart. it felt like a pat on the head, but you just...thanked him..? why ? nobody was supposed to show affection for him, even if it was a simple thank you. you even smiled ! he just did a small, stupid favor for you...damnit. what the hell was that ?
and then you walked back to your seat, sorting out the final row of books.
he clutched at his heart which was beating way to fast. he looked at you with an intense glare that looked full of frustration, but his burning face said otherwise. now the library seemed more interesting.
note: second post...i didn't expect to get anything more that 20 likes on my first
A/N: Are paternity tests blood based? Can they be completed in less than an hour? Do they ever give 99.99% matches? These are all things I probably couldâve googled, but weâre going to just run off of vibes here.
Also RIP very self indulgent scene where the reader freaks out about getting their blood drawn and Fisk comforts them. You did not fit with the chapterâs flow, but you live on in my heart nonetheless.
CW: Kidnapping. Again. Itâs complicated. Please stop going to secondary locations y/n. Also - Doctors/Medical Settings, Prostitution, Vague Discussion of Childhood Sexual Abuse (it didnât happen, Fisk just asks reader to be sure), Implied Off-Page Murder
Chapter 2 | Series Masterlist
Just as you expected, this clinic has a distinct air of âIâm richer than God and I want absolutely everyone to know it.â Fisk moves through the lobby like he belongs there, and you trail behind like a lost duckling. Or maybe itâs more accurate to compare yourself to a stray dog. The staff is certainly looking at you like youâre some sort of a wild animal.
The woman at the front desk stands when she sees Fisk, âMr. Fisk, what can we do for you today?â
âWe need to see Dr. Hawthorne.â
âOf course, follow me,â the woman nods and begins to lead the two of you deeper into the building.
She takes the two of you into an exam room that seems more like a spa than a medical office. The familiar scent of antiseptic is almost completely covered by some soothing combination of lavender and eucalyptus. The walls are devoid of the usual educational posters, and youâre fairly certain the exam table is covered in real leather.
You donât wait long to be seen. Less than five minutes after youâre taken back, a doctor walks into the room.
âHello, Mr. Fisk. What brings you in today?â Just like the lawyer, the woman you are assuming is Dr. Hawthorne doesnât even look at you. Her focus is entirely on Fisk.
âWe need a paternity test.â
Dr. Hawthorneâs eyes finally move to you, her gaze lingering on your clothes. Damn, if you knew this was going to happen today, you wouldâve worn better clothes. You probably look like youâre trying to scam Fisk or something, âof course, sir. We can clear this up right away.â
Yep. She totally thought you were lying to get Fiskâs money.
Fantastic.
Dr. Hawthorne works quickly, taking blood from both of you before leaving you alone in the silence of the exam room.
Your eyes bounce around the room, trying to ignore the weight of Fiskâs stare. You can sense that heâs working up to asking you something, so you quickly pull out your phone to avoid conversation.
Oh. Thatâs a lot of texts.
Now you remember why you put your phone away to begin with.
You sigh and pick a thread at random.
Karen: y/n, why did Foggy just tell me youâre with Fisk?
Fifteen minutes later.
Karen: Do you need help?
Karen: Do you have that gun I gave you?
10 minutes later.
You: No, and yes, but Iâm not about to shoot Wilson Fisk in public. I donât think heâs planning to hurt me.
Karen: Itâs Fisk
You: yeah, well, he might also be my dad
Call from Karen.
Karen: you cannot just text me that and then not answer your phone!!
You: heâs literally three feet away from me. I canât exactly talk.
Karen: fine, call me as soon as you get home
Karen: and donât be afraid to shoot him!
Fisk clears his throat. Apparently your phone is not an adequate ward against awkward conversation, âyour friend from earlier?â
âOh, no. A different friend, she gets worried easily.â
âYou seem to have very caring friends. Or perhaps very paranoid ones.â
You give a small huff, âyeah, well, it kind of comes with the territory. Lawyers and investigative journalists arenât known for being chill.â
Dr. Hawthorne chooses that moment to return, cutting off whatever response Fisk mightâve had to that information. She looks rattled, her eyes darting between the two of you as she holds out a piece of paper, âthe results, sir.â
You move closer to Fisk, peering over his sizable shoulder to read the results:
Y/L/N, Y/F/N â Fisk, Wilson
Genetic Match (Paternity) - 99.99%
Well.
Thatâs a problem.
You move away from Fisk, sitting down heavily in a nearby chair, âJesus fucking Christ, youâre actually my dad.â You feel panic rising again and quickly put your head between your knees, taking deep breaths.
You feel Fiskâs hand on your back, âthereâs no need to be scared, y/n.â
You laugh, sitting up again, âno need? Wilson fucking Fisk is my dad!â You stand, beginning to pace, âI always thought my dad was some random scumbag client of my mom, notâŠâ you gesture vaguely at Fisk, âyou.â You stop, slowly turning to look at him, âwait, were you a client? You donât really seem like youâd hire a cheap whore, but stillâŠâ
Youâre too caught up in your own feelings to notice Fiskâs growing anger, âyour mother was a prostitute? And you knew about it?â
âItâs not like she could really hide it, our apartment was tiny.â
âDid sheâŠâ Fisk stops your pacing and holds you steady, looking into your eyes, âdid she ever involve you in her business?â
âWhat?â You ask, confused. Your eyes widen when you realize what he was implying, âNo! Definitely not! Iâm pretty sure she killed a guy that asked how much I was. I mean, I didnât actually see it, I guess, but I heard a gunshot.â
Fisk sighs, letting you go, âgood. To answer your question, no, I was not one of your motherâs clients. I met her before she joined that particular profession.â
âOh, good. Thatâs good,â you look around the room before returning your gaze to Fisk. Heâs still standing in front of you, looking entirely too soft for a known crime lord, âso, uhâŠnow that we know my mom wasnât lying, I guess Iâm going to go home?â
âNo.â
âNo?â
âNo.â
You blink in confusion, âare you holding me hostage right now?â
âOf course not, but I canât let you leave.â
âCool, so, by definition, that is holding me hostage,â your eyes dart towards the door, calculating your probability of successfully running out of this building.
Youâre guessing the probability is low, but you still have to try. You make a mad dash for the door only to immediately collide with one of Fiskâs men once you reach the hallway. You shove against the man, âlet me go, asshole!â Youâre pissed that he only complies with your request once Fisk nods at him. You turn back towards Fisk in anger, âyou canât keep me here! I have rights!â
Fisk just sighs, âmy dear, news of my having a child is going to spread quickly. I cannot in good conscience allow you to return to your apartment until I know it is safe.â
You frown, that actually is kind of reasonable. You canât imagine the sorts of enemies Fisk has, and itâs not like your apartment is secure, âwhere am I supposed to go then?â
âYouâll stay with me,â Fisk says this like itâs the obvious thing in the world.
You laugh, only to realize heâs serious, âwait, really? With you?â
âMy penthouse has the best possible security and I have plenty of room. It will just be for a few days.â
âIâŠI donât knowâŠâ Damn Fisk and his stupid logic. Why is he making so much sense?
âJust try it, my dear. If you donât like staying there, Iâll move you to a hotel.â
You sigh heavily, âfine, but Iâm leaving if you try to pull anything shady.â
The first thing you notice about him is how carefully ordinary he tries to appear.
The class president is always composedâperfect posture, perfect attendance, perfect smile that never lingers too long on anyone in particular. He speaks softly, like every word has been rehearsed for approval. Teachers trust him. Students rely on him. Even the room seems calmer when heâs present.
But there are momentsâsmall, almost dismissible momentsâwhere something about him slips.
Like the way his gaze lingers just a fraction too long on your desk after you leave your seat. Or how heâs always the one to âfindâ things people lose, returning them with a polite smile that doesnât quite reach his eyes. No one thinks much of it. Heâs just helpful. Dependable.
Except you start noticing patterns you canât unsee.
A missing hair tie you swear was on your wrist. A pen you remember placing on your desk, gone before the end of the period. A hoodie you left draped over your chair that somehow makes its way back to you laterâfolded neatly, smelling faintly different, like itâs been kept somewhere enclosed for too long.
And always, itâs him who is nearby.
The truth is not loud when you discover it. It doesnât arrive like a revelationâit creeps in, quiet and suffocating, like realizing a room has been slowly filling with water.
Hidden behind the locked drawer of his deskâwhere no student is supposed to lookâyou find it.
A collection.
Not random. Not careless. Arranged with precision that feels almost reverent. A hair tie you wore last week, stretched slightly as if handled too often. A folded note you donât remember losing. A button from a uniform sleeve. A piece of fabric cut cleanly from something you once wore, kept like it matters more than it should.
Everything labeled. Everything preserved.
Not as souvenirs.
As proof.
Thereâs something deeply wrong in the way itâs organizedâlike heâs cataloging you, not your belongings. Like each object is a fixed point anchoring him to something only he understands. The air in the drawer feels too still, too controlled, as if even dust isnât allowed to behave freely in there.
And then you realize the worst part.
Nothing in that drawer looks stolen in haste.
It looks collected. Patiently. Repeatedly. Over time.
As if he never once doubted that he would be allowed to keep it.
And when you finally become aware of him standing behind youâquiet, perfectly composed as alwaysâyou understand something you canât easily shake:
He doesnât see this as obsession.
He sees it as responsibility.
Like you are something fragile the world keeps misplacing⊠and he is the only one careful enough to keep you safe by keeping pieces of you where they canât disappear.
His voice, when he finally speaks, is gentle.
Almost proud.
âI thought youâd notice eventually.â
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That was the worst part, about this whole situation. It wasnât the bloody, cold body of your friend that broke youânot her glassy eyed stare that wouldnât stop fucking looking at you, or the fact that you could taste blood and iron on your tongue, but the fact that this shouldnât have been happening to you. You were a sensible, upright person. You didnât go out at night, searching for trouble. You didnât entertain strangers on the streets. You stayed in your small, cramped apartment, safe from the world and everything dangerous in it.Â
âAww, câmon, darlinâ. Donât go lookinâ at me like that.âÂ
He crouches down, a grin tugging at his lips as you note with sickening clarity that his cheeks have a brush of pink on them. His fingersâthe same fingers your best friend had been shamelessly eying just an hour agoâis playing with your kitchen knife. The same stupid kitchen knife you had bought just yesterday as a gift for your dad.Â
âItâs not like I want to kill you, darlinâ. Yâsee, itâs justâwell, damn, I got kinda tired of waitinâ for you to just realize you love me, and god, Iâve hated that stupid friend of yours for months nowââÂ
His voice is ringing in your ears, but it isnât the giddy octave of his voice that scares you more than his eyes, all blown out and dark as he goes from examining the bloody knife to your face. You think he gets off on your fear, or he must be enjoying something on your face as he lets out a breathy laugh.Â
âGod, thatâs the most emotion youâve shown me all month, darlinâ,â He whispers, and you try to ignore the sickening awe that cuts through in his voice as he lightly taps at your temple, leaving a bloody-red fingerprint on your skin. Â
Your stomach curls in on itself.Â
Your friend is still watching this exchange with her dull gaze, and he seems to realize where your attention is going. He follows your gaze, and his expression instantly sours. He straightens, his lips pulled into a scowl as he pushes your friend's body away from your peripheral.Â
âShe wasnât that much of a friend, now was she?â He muses, turning his attention back onto you. From your position, he looks a bit like a godâtall, gleaming, and absolutely terrifying. âShe always annoyed you. I could tellâyou always had that tell when you got annoyedâit was the most prettiest thing Iâd ever seen, tooââ
You were a sensible, upright person. You didnât go out at night, searching for trouble. You didnât entertain strangers on the streets. You stayed in your small, cramped apartment, safe from the world and everything dangerous in it.Â
Yet, right now, trembling on the floor of your apartment, blood-stained and scared, you realized you had forgotten that danger always tends to sneak up on people who never expected it in the first place.
@ DERELICT-SAINTESS. do not plagiarize, claim my work as your own, translate or share my posts on any platform outside of tumblr.
ÊáŽÉŽáŽ áŽÊᎠáŽÊáŽÊáŽÊ x ÊáŽáŽáŽ áŽÊ
He was better as a concept.
That was the universal truth about Evan, whispered like a shared secret between girls in the back rows of classrooms and over sticky cafeteria tables.
He would sweep into a girlâs life like a summer storm, letting her believe, with absolute, unwavering certainty, that he loved her.
And then, the moment the calendar turned, he would suddenly become the most distant person on the planet.
It was a pattern so precise it was almost mechanical.
The love-bombing was just the bait. But once he had someone hooked, the real Evan crawled out.
He was the type to casually "forget" anniversaries, to scroll through his phone while you were pouring your heart out, and to make you feel completely insane for expecting the bare minimum.
Worse, he was a chronic, unapologetic cheater.
His eyes were always wandering to the next girl before the ink on his current relationship was even dry.
He would text his exes late at night, flirt with your friends right in front of you, and gaslight you into believing you were just being "insecure" when you caught him.
He would drain a girl of her confidence, strip away her self-esteem, and then discard her like a candy wrapper when he got bored.
He was like a damn vampire, a boy who took and took until there was nothing left, and he deserved every single ounce of bad karma coming his way.
Which brought you to the bet.
It started out as a joke between you and your friends over an iced coffee on a Tuesday afternoon.
Someone had brought up Evanâs latest victimâa sweet girl from the track team who had been crying in the girl's bathroom all morningâand the conversation quickly turned into a critique of his predictable routine.
"I bet he uses the exact same script on every single one of them," your friend had scoffed, swirling her straw. "Itâs so transparent. I give it three weeks before he pulls the vanishing act."
You had laughed, leaning back in your chair. "Itâs not even that hard. The guy is practically a machine. You just input a little attention, and the love-bombing protocol starts automatically."
"Oh yeah?" your other friend challenged, a dangerous gleam in her eye.
"Prove it. Thirty bucks says you canât get him to do the whole routine for you. Let's see how he actually love-bombs when someone is looking for it."
Thirty dollars wasn't life changing money, but enough to get you some fastfood so of course you agreed ! (lmao)
Besides, it sounded entertaining. Evan was in your English and your PE class, meaning he was practically served to you on a silver platter.
You accepted the bet with a laugh, fully aware that it was going to be a walk in the park.
And it was.
It was actually..almost embarrassingly easy.
Literally all you had to do was start talking to him.
You began by lingering after the bell in English, asking him stupid questions about the reading assignments you already understood.
In PE, youâd walk the laps next to him, laughing a little too loudly at his shitty jokes and tossing your hair over your shoulder when the sun hit it just right.
You gave him a few lingering looks, a handful of playful nudges during warm-ups, and a bit of calculated flirting that left just enough unsaid to keep him hungry.
You didn't even have to give that much effort because Evan was a boy validated entirely by female attention, and you were throwing him a bone.
And predictably, he bit down hard.
You got his number by the end of the first week under the guise of "needing help with the essay."
By the third week, right on schedule, he cornered you by your locker after school, his eyes wide and brimming with a desperate, practiced intensity.
He confessed his feelings with a speech that sounded like it had been plagiarized from a bad indie romance novel, his voice trembling as he asked you if he could be your boyfriend.
You smiled, the perfect picture of a flattered girl, and said yes.
The thirty bucks was practically in your pocket.
Dating him, however, quickly turned into an exercise in pure exhaustion.
You hated the boy. Watching his routine from the inside was infinitely more repulsive than watching it from afar.
You could tell, with absolute clarity, that he was love-bombing you. It was a performance that felt entirely manufactured and completely overdone.
Every morning, he was waiting at your locker, hovering like an anxious puppy.
He was constantly trying to kiss you, to wrap his arms around your waist in the middle of the crowded hallways, and to hold your hand so tightly your fingers went numb.
He would smother you with grand, empty gestures. He started buying you cheap, silver-plated rings from those little boutiques downtown, sliding them onto your fingers with a reverence that made you want to roll your eyes.
If your shoelaces came untied, he would aggressively drop to both knees right there on the dirty linoleum, tying them with a dramatic flourish as if he were a knight in shining armor performing a holy duty.
But the worst part was the way he looked at you. It wasn't sweet, it was intense to the point of being suffocating.
He looked at you like he wanted to eat you whole, his dark eyes tracking your every movement, devouring every expression on your face as if he were trying to memorize your soul.
It was too much.
It was entirely too attached, entirely too fast, and completely different from how he had treated any of the other girls he had dated.
With them, he had been a charming man. With you, he was a frantic, clinging mess.
And by the time the relationship hit the three-week mark, the novelty had completely worn off. Honestly, it was becoming incredibly boring.
You and your friends would sit at your usual lunch table, and youâd show them the latest cheap ring heâd bought you, laughing as they groaned at his pathetic antics.
"Heâs suffocating," you complained, picking at your food.
"It was funny for the first ten days, but now I canât even breathe without him texting me 'what are u doing?' Itâs so tiring."
Your friends completely agreed.
The bet had been won, the point had been proven, and the entire charade had become a massive, irritating chore.
It was getting genuinely annoying the way he always clung onto you, the way his name would flash across your phone screen thirty times an hour, the way he would pout if you wanted to spend lunch with your friends instead of tucked under his arm.
Everything about him was irritating.
So, you planned to break it off.
You figured it was time to give him a taste of his own medicine.
Youâd show him exactly how it felt to have the rug pulled out from under him, to be treated like an absolute afterthought by someone who had claimed to adore you just days prior.
You started ignoring his texts for hours, replying with dry, one-word answers.
When he tried to put his arm around you, youâd seamlessly step out of his reach to grab something from your bag.
You watched him flounder, watched the confusion bleed into his eyes, and you felt a cold, vindictive sense of satisfaction.
He deserved it.
You called him out to the bleachers after track practice on a Friday afternoon to finally end it.
The air was cooling down, the sky a bruised shade of purple, and you stood there with your hands shoved into your pockets, ready to read him his eviction notice.
Except, you hadn't anticipated one crucial, horrifying detail.
Evan wasn't faking it.
"We need to stop doing this," you said, your voice flat, cutting through the quiet hum of the empty field. "Iâm breaking up with you, Evan. Itâs over."
You expected him to sigh, maybe look a little annoyed that his game had been cut short, and walk away with his hands in his pockets to go text his next target.
Instead, the world seemed to violently fracture right in front of you.
The color drained from Evan's face so fast it looked like he had been struck.
His jaw slackened, his eyes widening in a look of such raw terror that you actually took a half-step back.
For a second, he didn't breathe. And then, the tears came.
It wasn't a quiet, dignified single tear, either. Evan started crying like a absolute baby.
A harsh, choking sob tore out of his throat, his shoulders violently shaking as his entire composure crumbled into dust.
Before you could even register what was happening, he dropped to his knees on the cold metal of the bleachers.
He reached out, his hands trembling violently, and grabbed onto your leg, burying his face against your denim-clad knee.
He held on for dear life, his fingers gripping your jeans so tightly his knuckles turned stark white, as if he were a drowning man and you were the only piece of wood left floating in the ocean.
"No, no, please, please don't do this," he sobbed, his voice cracking, completely ruined.
He lifted his face, and he looked entirely patheticâhis nose red, his eyes bloodshot and streaming with heavy, frantic tears, his chest heaving as he gasped for air.
"Please, just tell me what I did wrong. Was I too loud? Did I do something stupid? Iâll change, I swear to God Iâll change. Whatever you want me to be, Iâll be it. Just donât leave me. Please, please donât leave me."
You stood frozen, looking down at him in sheer disgust and shock.
"Evan, get off me!" you said, trying to pull your leg away, but his grip only tightened, his body shaking with another wave of hysterical sobs.
"I love you," he choked out, the words spilling out of him like a confession of a crime, raw and bloody and horrifyingly real.
"I've never felt like this before. I swear I'm not lying to you. I can't sleep, I can't eat, I just think about you every second of the day. Please, don't do this to me. I'll do anything. Just tell me how to fix it."
And in that agonizing, pathetic display, the truth finally clicked into place, sharp and cruel.
For the first time in his miserable, narcissistic lifeâthe idiot had actually fallen in love.
He hadn't been playing a game with you.
The love-bombing, the suffocating attention, the cheap rings, the tying of your shoes, the hungry, desperate looksâit hadn't been his usual manufactured routine.
It had been the clumsy, overwhelming reality of a boy who had finally been struck by the lightning bolt he had spent years pretending to wield.
And unfortunately for himâit happened to be with the one person who never loved him back.
You looked down at him, at his tear-stained face, his desperate hands clinging to your clothes, and you didn't feel a single shred of pity.
You remembered the track girl crying in the bathroom. You remembered the countless other girls whose hearts he had chewed up and spit out without a second thought.
He was experiencing, for the very first time, the exact flavor of agony he had dealt out as a hobby.
"Let go of me, Evan," you said, your voice entirely devoid of warmth, cold as ice.
You wrenched your leg out of his grasp with a sharp, forceful tug.
He stumbled forward, his hands hitting the cold metal of the bleacher where your foot had just been, a fresh sob breaking from his lips as he realized he couldn't hold on.
He stayed there, on his hands and knees.
You didn't look back as you walked away down the steps, leaving him entirely alone in the ruins of the first and last thing he would ever truly care about.
Evan the type to rub his bulge over his phone that's open to a pic of u đ«Ą
and then Evan grew up to be Yan ex
No bc real shit I hope none of u hoes feel bad for him bc he's a bad person and #hatemen #hatecheaters !!!
You live in the woods and don't watch the news. That's why when a Viltrumite lands on your lawn, you offer him some lemonade and ask if he wants to use your phone to call someone. You take one look at his clothes and just figure that he's a new superhero. Well, not a new one. He's pretty old so you figure that someone probably dug him up from somewhere.
You offer your couch for him to crash on and two blankets because you figured that one wouldn't fully cover him. You sleep well, surprisingly lulled to sleep by his foundation rattling snores. That morning, you bake banana bread while he stares at you.
"Why do you talk about killing so much?" You ask as you snack on your generous slice of banana bread.
"That's what I do." He answers with his mouth full of a solid quarter of the loaf.
"Cool." You shrug as you take another bite.
"I will be staying here for the foreseeable future." Conquest asserts after a few moments.
"I mean, you're welcome to stay on the couch as long as you help me chop wood." You reply.
"You would willingly let me stay?" He asks as if it's the greatest deal he's ever heard.
You're a bit confused about why he seems so delighted. Your couch isn't very comfortable and you saw how his legs were dangling off of one of the armrests when he laid down the night before. Oh well. You're getting someone to chop wood for you.
"Eh, I don't really want to do it myself and I like your company. Also, you need to let me rub the bald parts of your hair sometimes." You say as if it's a normal thing to request from someone you've known for less than 24 hours.
He blinked a few times before nodding and biting off another quarter of a loaf of banana bread. You pull up the delivery app on your phone and add more bananas to your grocery list.
A/N: I thought about finding a fake text maker thing for the texts in this chapter, but those programs are really annoying to work with. So y'all are just getting regular formatting for the texts.
CW: Kinda sorta kidnapping? Also implied off-page murder (RIP Mr. Rivers)
Chapter 1 | Series Masterlist
The room begins to spin and you watch with an abstract detachment as the letter falls from your hands. Your thoughts are a tangled jumble that you can't even begin to straighten out. All you know is that you have to get out of here. Now. You will yourself to stand, but you're frozen to the spot by unanswered questions: if you tried to leave now, would Fisk stop you? Would he follow you back to your apartment? Oh god, you canât bring Wilson Fisk to Mattâs doorstep. What do you do? How do you even begin to deal with this? What-
â...kay, my dear?â You blink as Fisk's hand lands gently on your shoulder, breaking you out of your spiral.
It's obvious that he just asked you something, but you have no idea what, âsorry, what did you say?â
âI said that I know this must be shocking news, but you donât need to worry. Let me take care of this, okay?â
Fiskâs voice is so calm, so steady. You latch on to that steadiness like a drowning man that just got thrown a life preserver, and you nod before considering the implications of your actions. Youâre vaguely aware of Fisk speaking to one of his men - when did they get here? - and you watch blankly as Mr. Rivers is dragged out of the room. Part of you knows you should be concerned about that, but youâre too shocked to react.
Fisk looks back at you, âwell, my dear, I believe a paternity test is in order. We can go to the clinic now.â
You almost nod again, but stop at the last moment. You canât seriously be thinking about going to a secondary location with Wilson Fisk. Snap out of it, y/n!
âRight, great idea. Alternative idea, though: maybe we can both just pretend we never got these letters and go back to whatever we were doing before my mother died? Iâm sure you have important crime lord things to do.â Oh god. Did you just say that out loud? You close your eyes, bracing yourself for Fiskâs anger, but it never comes. You gather the courage to open your eyes and see that heâsâŠsmiling?
Fisk laughs, actually laughs, before reassuring you, âIâm sure youâve heard terrible things about me, but I can assure you that you are safe with me. There is no need to be afraid.â
âIâm not afraid,â liar, âI just try not to go to secondary locations with strange men.â
âThat is very wise of you, but Iâm not a strange man, am I?â
You bite your lip, âwellâŠno.â
âWould it make you feel better if someone else knew where you were going? Maybe a friend? I could call someone for you.â
You hold back a hysterical laugh at the thought of Matt, Foggy, or Karen getting a random call from the man they helped put in prison, âitâs fine. Iâll just text someone.â
âVery well, you can do that on our way to the clinic, then,â before you can refuse, Fisk ushers you out of the building and into a long black town car.
You stare at your phone, trying to figure out who to text. Mattâs busy with his mysterious trip, Karen would insist on accompanying you, and FoggyâŠwell, you suppose heâs probably the most reasonable option. You sigh and open your text thread:
You: donât freak out
Foggy: terrible opener, but continue
You: Iâm maybe kinda sort in Wilson Fiskâs car right now?
You decline Foggyâs call.
Foggy: what??
Foggy: are you okay?
Foggy: do you need help?
You: No, it's fine. He told me to tell someone where I'm going, so I don't think he's planning to kill me or anything.
Another call.
Foggy: why were you with him in the first place?
You: it's a long story. I'll explain everything later, okay?
A third call.
Foggy: hell no
A fourth.
Foggy: pick up the phone
A fifth.
Foggy: I will trace your location and show up with Daredevil if you don't answer my call
You sigh heavily and answer the call, "I doubt you have Daredevil's number, Foggy."
"I'll make a signal. Like Batman."
You laugh, "calm down. I'm fine, see? Completely alive and well."
"What does Fisk want with you?" Foggy sounds appropriately suspicious.
"Right now? A paternity test."
"WHAT?!"
"Oops, sorry, Foggy. Looks like we're going through a tunnel or something. Talk to you once I'm back home. Bye." You quickly hang up your phone, shoving it in your bag to ward against the barrage of texts you're sure you'll get once Foggy tells the others. You're not quite ready to deal with that yet.
You almost jump when Fisk suddenly speaks, "you live in Hell's Kitchen?"
"What?"
"On the phone, you mentioned Daredevil."
"Oh, right. Yeah, my current place is right in the middle of the kitchen," god, you wish you were home right now.
"Do you live alone?" Fisk's eyes scan your body. His gazes lingers on your second-hand clothes and worn out shoes, clearly assessing your wealth.
"No, I have a roommate. He's great."
"Your roommate is a man?" Fisk seems almost...offended?
"UhâŠyeah?" You have no idea why he seems to care so much about your living situation. It's not like he knows you.
You're saved from Fisk's continued questioning by your arrival at the fanciest medical clinic you've ever seen. It looks like they'd charge you more than your monthly paycheck just to breathe the air in that place. You hide behind Fisk's considerable form as the two of you walk inside, shielding yourself from the staff's judgemental eyes.
God. How did you even get here? You never shouldâve answered the phone.
Dick Grayson was six years old when he first started wondering about his soulmate.
At the time, his greatest concern was whether pirates were cooler than cowboys. A debate he took very seriously.
His mother, however, seemed far more interested in the scrape stretched across his knee.
"Stop picking at it."
"I'm not."
"Dick."
Mary Grayson sighed and gently caught his hand before he could peel away the corner of the bandage.
The injury wasn't actually his. That was the whole reason she was tending to it in the first place.
Somewhere out there, another child had tripped and fallen.
The scrape on their knee had appeared on his moments later, bright and stinging against skin that had never touched the ground.
Dick considered this one of the most fascinating things in the world.
A person he'd never met.
Someone who somehow belonged to him. Connected to him by something no one else could see.
"Maybe they were climbing a mountain."
His mother's lips twitched. "A mountain?"
"Or a castle."
"A castle is much more likely."
"I think so too." Dick nodded solemnly. A castle explained the scrape much better than simply falling over.
Castles had stone staircases and secret passageways. Castles had dragons and villains and daring escapes.
His soulmate was probably off on an adventure.
His mother finished securing the bandage before pressing a kiss to the top of his head.
"Your soulmate must be having quite the day."
The thought filled him with excitement.
For the rest of the afternoon, Dick imagined another child racing through hidden corridors, ducking beneath traps and escaping dragons by the skin of their teeth.
The possibility that they had simply tripped over their own feet never even crossed his mind.
ââââ
When he was seven, he spent two days complaining about a toothache.
The pain settled deep in his jaw, throbbing every time he tried to smile.
By the third day, it disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived.
His father explained that soulmate resonance sometimes worked that way.
That his soulmate had probably gone to the dentist.
Dick immediately sat upright. "What if they were scared?"
"I'm sure they were brave."
"What if nobody held their hand?"
John looked up from the costume he was repairing. "Dick."
"What?"
"They're not stranded on a deserted island."
"You don't know that."
His mother laughed so hard from the other side of the trailer that she nearly dropped her equipment.
Dick didn't see what was so funny.
His soulmate was out there somewhere.
They might be scared of dentists. Or hated needles.
The thoughts lingered with him long after the conversation ended.
Sometimes, late at night, Dick would stare at the ceiling and wonder if they ever thought about him too.
Whether they looked at the strange injuries that appeared on their skin and imagined a boy they'd never met.
He didn't know it then, but that question would follow him for years.
ââââ
Dick had developed a habit of asking questions nobody could answer.
What was their favourite colour?
Did they like animals?
Could they do cartwheels?
Did they live nearby?
Did they know about him?
Did they ever wonder the same things?
His parents always answered as though the questions mattered. With interest. As though his curiosity wasn't silly.
As though wondering about the person connected to him was the most natural thing in the world.
Maybe that was where it started.
Not the soulmate bond itself, the encouragement. The way nobody ever told him to stop asking. The quiet certainty with which his parents treated his soulmate's existence.
They never spoke about them as a possibility. They spoke about them as a certainty.
That somewhere in the world, there was a person who was completely his.
ââââ
At night, after the performances ended and the circus grounds settled into a comfortable hush, Mary often read to him before bed.
Dick's favourite stories weren't fairy tales.
They were stories about connected souls.
The old book lived beside the couch in their trailer, its spine cracked and softened with age. The pages had been turned so many times that the corners curled.
Inside were dosens of accounts collected from all over the world.
Stories about soulmates separated by oceans, soulmates born years apart, soulmates who searched for decades, or who stumbled into one another entirely by accident.
Dick never grew tired of hearing them.
He already knew most of the endings by heart. But that wasn't the point. The point was that every story promised the same thing.
No matter how long it took, how far apart they started, or how impossible it seemed, the soulmates always found each other.
Every single time.
The certainty of it settled somewhere deep inside him. A truth as unquestionable as gravity. As natural as the rising sun.
His soulmate was out there. And one day, they would be his.
By the time Mary finished reading, Dick would already be staring out the trailer window.
Wondering how they would meet. What they looked like. If they laughed loudly or quietly.
If they liked the circus.
Wondering if they were looking at the same stars scattered across the night sky. If they ever touched the marks that appeared on their skin and thought about him.
The thoughts comforted him.
No matter how large the world felt, where he went or how many cities the circus travelled through, there was always someone in it who belonged to him.
Someone he hadn't met yet.
A person he was already learning how to love.
ââââ
When he was eight, before the fall, he started keeping things.
Not intentionally at first.
A postcard from a city the circus had passed through. A photograph he liked. A joke that made him laugh. A story he thought someone else would enjoy.
Small things.
The kind of things most children forgot about by the following week.
Dick didn't.
Because whenever he found something special, he caught himself thinking the same thing.
I should tell my soulmate about this someday.
The thought came so naturally he never stopped to question it.
Why would he?
His soulmate was part of his future. Everyone said so.
Some days, he imagined finally meeting them and emptying years of collected memories into their hands.
Showing them every postcard.
Telling them every story.
Introducing them to every place he'd loved.
As though all the little pieces of his life were simply waiting for the right person to share them with.
As though he'd been saving a seat beside him all along.
Years later, after Gotham, after Robin, after everything that came afterward, Dick would still remember those moments.
The scrape on his knee.
The toothache.
The bedtime stories.
His parent's laughter.
The quiet certainty in their voices whenever they spoke about soulmates.
People often assumed his faith in destiny came from the bond itself.
They were wrong.
The bond only connected him to another person.
His parents were the ones who taught him to care. To wonder and to wait.
They were the ones who taught him that somewhere in the world there was a person meant for him.
Someone important who was worth searching for. Someone worth believing in.
Long before he knew anything about them at all.
He loved the idea of them first. Everything else came later.
Before he ever even had a reason to.
Most people loved talking about destiny.
Adults spoke about soulmates with the same certainty they reserved for death and taxes. Teachers smiled when the topic came up in class. Grandparents reminisced over holiday dinners. Entire television networks built reality shows around reunions.
It was impossible to escape.
Not that anyone seemed interested in trying.
Soulmates were proof that the universe cared. Proof that nobody was truly alone. That somewhere out there existed a person created specifically for you.
People loved that idea.
You hated it. Not the concept itself, just yours.
When you were younger, you'd thought soulmate injuries sounded romantic.
A sore wrist because they spent too long writing or a tiny burn from touching a hot pan.
The sort of stories people laughed about.
"My soulmate tripped over again."
"Mine wears his rings on too tight."
"I love when she bites her lip when sheâs nervous."
Everyone always sounded so fond when they talked about it. As though every ache was a love letter. Like pain somehow became sweeter when it belonged to someone else.
Bonds manifested differently depending on the pair.
Some people shared emotions, some met each other in dreams. A small percentage could hear each other's thoughts during moments of intense stress. The most common bond, however, was physical resonance.
If your soulmate got hurt, so did you.
Not the injury itself, the consequences. A broken bone wouldn't suddenly appear in your arm, but the pain would. The ache, tenderness, and limitations.
If they twisted an ankle, you'd spend the next few weeks limping around on a perfectly healthy leg.
If they got a migraine, you got one too.
Most people only experienced minor inconveniences.
Nothing life-altering. Nothing that interfered with daily life. At least, not often.
You were not most people.
You stopped finding it romantic at twelve.
Because scraped knees and accidental burns were one thing. Waking up unable to feel your left arm was another.
The pain hit without warning. One second you were asleep, the next you were on your bedroom floor screaming.
Your parents rushed you to the hospital.
The doctors found nothing wrong.
No fracture. No dislocation. No nerve damage. Physically, your arm was perfectly healthy.
Unfortunately, your soulmate's wasn't. Apparently they'd shattered theirs.
Badly.
The pain lingered for nearly two months.
Everyone acted excited.
Your soulmate survived.
Isn't that wonderful?
You received congratulations.
Congratulations.
As though being unable to lift a backpack was somehow a milestone worth celebrating.
The years that followed only got worse.
Your soulmate got shot.
They got stabbed.
Sometimes they manage both within the same week.
You developed a concerning familiarity with painkillers. The nurses at your local urgent care knew you by name. One doctor suggested keeping a journal to track symptoms.
You filled three notebooks.
Looking back through them felt less like medical records and more like a crime scene timeline.
Gunshot wounds. Broken knuckles. Dislocated shoulder. Concussion. Concussion. Another concussion.
You had spent years trying to imagine what kind of person accumulated this many injuries.
At first you'd pictured an athlete.
Then a firefighter.
Maybe a soldier.
Eventually, you'd settled on a simpler explanation.
Your soulmate was an idiot.
At the time, it felt like the only reasonable explanation.
Years later, you would discover that the truth was significantly worse.
But for now, all you knew was that somewhere out there existed a complete stranger whose self-preservation instincts had apparently been beaten to death in an alley.
And for reasons you would never understand, the universe had decided that person belonged to you.
ââââ
The first time you missed a school excursion because your soulmate had managed to break something important, everyone treated it like an unfortunate coincidence.
The second time, they called it bad luck.
By the third, people had started joking that your soulmate had a personal grudge against your social life.
You laughed along because it was easier than admitting how much it bothered you.
Most people, hell, everyone romanticised soulmates.
Talked about fate and destiny and finding the missing piece of yourself.
Most soul pairs experienced a handful of major injuries throughout their lives.
Yours seemed determined to collect them.
You remembered when your soulmate somehow got stabbed before your final exams. The pain had hit so suddenly you nearly collapsed in the middle of class.
Your friends had thought you were having some kind of medical emergency.
In hindsight, they weren't entirely wrong.
You sat the exam anyway.
You failed it.
The examiner wasn't interested in hearing that somebody else's knife wound had ruined your concentration.
Life kept moving regardless.
Teachers didn't extend deadlines because your soulmate had been hospitalised.
Employers didn't care that you were limping because someone you'd never met had twisted their ankle chasing God-knows-what.
The world expected you to adapt,
So you did.
You learned how to function through headaches. How to smile through pain. How to swallow frustration before it became bitterness.
You learned exactly how many over-the-counter painkillers you could safely take.
You learned how to fake being fine.
But most importantly, you learned how to stop hoping.
Because every time you wondered if maybe things would get easier, your soulmate proved you wrong.
At first you'd worried about them.
What kind of life were they living? Were they sick? Were they trapped in dangerous circumstances? Did they need help?
That concern lasted until the fourth broken bone.
Then the sixth.
Then the first gunshot wound.
The shot had been a turning point. Because normal people did not get shot. Normal people definitely didn't get shot more than once.
You remembered lying awake in bed afterward, staring at the ceiling while pain radiated through your shoulder.
What the hell is wrong with this person?
The question never really went away.
As the years passed the injuries kept coming. Sometimes there would be weeks of peace.
Then suddenly your soulmate would decide to throw themselves off a building.
Or through a window.
Or into traffic.
At least that's what it felt like.
You didn't know who they were. Didn't know their name. Didn't know where they lived. But you knew they had absolutely no regard for their own safety. No fucking regard for your safety either.
And eventually, concern became irritation. Irritation became anger. Anger became resentment.
Not because of the pain. Not even because of the injuries. Because of what they stole from you.
Your freedom. Choices. The ability to plan a normal life. Every decision came with a silent question.
What if my soulmate gets hurt that day?
You missed birthdays. Missed opportunities. Cancelled plans. Skipped events.
Not because you wanted to.
Because experience had taught you that sooner or later another injury would arrive.
Meanwhile your soulmate remained a stranger. A ghost. A burden you carried without ever being asked if you wanted to.
It always did.
It made you angry.
Not the broken bones. Not the scars. Not even the countless nights spent curled around pain that didn't belong to you.
The fact that someone you'd never met had become one of the most important influences on your life.
Without your permission, your consent, and without ever even saying sorry.
Somewhere out there, your soulmate was choosing to live their life this way.
And every time they did, you paid the price.
You wondered if they ever thought about you. If they ever felt guilty.
If they even cared.
Or if, wherever they were, they simply got back up after every injury and ran headfirst into the next disaster.
Unaware that somewhere across the country, someone was beginning to hate them.
Dick found the post three weeks later.
If anyone asked, it had been an accident. A coincidence.
The sort of thing that happened when someone spent too much time scrolling through soulmate forums at two in the morning.
Nobody asked. That was probably for the best. Dick knew himself well enough to recognise a lie when he told one.
There had never been anything accidental about the way he searched for traces of his soulmate.
The post appeared halfway down a discussion thread titled:
What's the worst injury you've ever shared with your soulmate?
Most of the replies were harmless.
Broken wrists.
Appendectomies.
A woman whose soulmate had somehow fractured their nose trying to impress someone with a skateboard.
Dick smiled despite himself.
Then he kept scrolling.
The smile disappeared.
ââââ
I've had more concussions than some professional athletes.
At this point, I'm convinced my soulmate has a death wish.
If I ever meet them, my first question is going to be what the hell is wrong with them.
The post went into concerning details about their injuries dating from over ten years.
Dick stared at the screen.
Read the post again.
Then a third time.
The amusement slowly drained from his face.
Because the timeline matched. Not approximately. Not close enough to be concerning. Exactly.
The gun wounds, the stabbings, concussions, fractures. The endless collection of injuries that had become so commonplace to him he rarely thought about them anymore.
His stomach twisted.
For a long moment, he simply sat there. Laptop balanced on his knees. Apartment fading into the background.
The words blurred.
Not because he couldn't read them. Because he couldn't stop.
Every sentence felt heavier than the last. Not the complaints.
Those made sense.
God, they made sense.
What hurt was everything beneath them.
The frustration. The years of accumulated resentment packed into a handful of sentences.
Not anger born from a single bad day. The kind that settled in after years of disappointment.
His chest tightened.
He scrolled further.
The account wasn't anonymous. There was a username. Years of history.
Dick clicked on it before he could talk himself out of it.
The oldest post was five years old.
The next mentioned another concussion.
A missed birthday.
A cancelled trip.
A broken rib.
An emergency room visit.
Each entry felt like another weight settling onto his shoulders.
Dick had spent years accepting pain as part of his life.
Bruises, bones and cuts all healed.
It had never occurred to him that somebody else had been dragged through it alongside him.
A stranger.
Someone who had never agreed to any of it.
Someone who had spent years waking up with injuries they couldn't explain.
Dick closed the laptop.
Immediately opened it again.
His jaw tightened. He rubbed a hand over his face.
For twenty years, he'd wondered about his soulmate. Wondered who they were. What they were like. Whether they ever thought about him the way heâd always thought about them.
A quiet curiosity that surfaced in the spaces between missions and late-night patrols.
He'd imagined meeting them someday.
Not because soulmates guaranteed a happy ending. Life had taught him better than that.
But because they'd always been there.
Every broken bone. Every near miss. Every moment he'd walked away from something that should have killed him.
They'd felt it too.
Somewhere.
Somehow.
The idea of them had become a constant. A second shadow stretching alongside his own.
And now, for the first time, he was seeing things from the other side.
The reality of it. The cost.
His throat felt tight.
tBecausehey weren't waiting for him.
They weren't searching.
If anything, they sounded exhausted by the idea of him.
And for the first time, Dick found himself wondering whether meeting him would be the last thing they wanted.
The thought hurt far more than it should have.
Dick had managed to stay away from the profile for three days.
He told himself it was respect.
Privacy.
Common decency.
They had spent years dealing with consequences they never asked for, the least he could do was leave them alone.
Three days lasted longer than he expected.
Not nearly as long as he'd hoped.
On the fourth night, he opened the page again.
Just for a minute.
Just to look.
That was the excuse, anyway.
One minute became an hour. Then two. Then the rest of the night.
He read everything.
Posts. Comments. Replies buried in forgotten threads.
Tiny fragments of a life scattered across years of internet history.
Favorite movies, music recommendations, complaints about work.
A rant about a terrible landlord. An argument over whether pineapple belonged on pizza.
Meaningless details.
Except they weren't meaningless. Not to him.
Every new discovery felt strangely precious. Like hearing a voice through a wall after years of silence.
For the first time, his soulmate wasn't an abstract possibility.
They were becoming real.
And Dick found himself wanting more.
What did their laugh sound like? What expression did they make when they were annoyed? Did they drink coffee in the morning? Did they still sleep curled up on the same side of the bed they'd mentioned three years ago?
The questions multiplied faster than he could answer them.
By sunrise, he knew more about them than he'd ever thought possible.
By sunrise, he also knew that it wasn't enough.
ââââ
The more Dick learned, the more impossible it became to ignore the distance between you.
You were real.
A real person living somewhere beyond his reach.
A real person carrying scars that belonged to both of them.
And once he knew that, how was he supposed to walk away? How was he supposed to forget? Keep waiting?
Dick spent years helping strangers.
Pulling people out of collapsing buildings. Talking frightened kids off ledges. Running toward people who needed help. Doing nothing had never been one of his strengths.
The realisation should have worried him.
Instead, it felt reasonable. Natural.
Almost inevitable.
By the end of the week, he found himself revisiting old comments. Looking closer.
A mention of weather. A complaint about public transit. A local restaurant.
Tiny details.
Nothing significant on their own, but what became patterns when placed together.
The detective in him noticed before the rest of him did.
A city narrowed to a suburb. A suburb narrowed to three possibilities. Three possibilities narrowed to one.
Dick stared at the screen. His pulse quickened.
A line had been crossed somewhere.
He wasn't entirely sure when.
Only that he should probably stop.
Instead, he opened another tab. Then another.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard. Long enough for hesitation to appear. Not long enough for it to matter.
Because you were out there, and you were hurting.
The first search took less than ten seconds.
The second took even less.
And when the first genuine piece of information appeared on his screen, Dick felt his heartbeat stumble.
For the first time in twenty years, his soulmate wasn't a dream.
You were becoming a person.
And Dick Grayson had never been very good at letting go of the people he loved.
The next morning began the same way most mornings did.
Pain.
You woke before your alarm, blinking groggily at the ceiling while a dull ache settled somewhere between your shoulder blades. Not terrible. Not even particularly surprising. Just another reminder that your soulmate was still out there making questionable decisions.
At least nothing felt broken.
That was practically a victory.
You lay there for another minute before forcing yourself upright. The soreness protested immediately, but years of experience had taught you how to judge the difference between annoying and hospital-worthy.
This fell firmly into the first category. Which meant work.
Lucky you.
By the time you arrived at the coffee shop, Gotham was already awake.
Rush hour traffic crawled through the streets outside. The sidewalks overflowed with exhausted office workers, students, tourists and people who looked like they hadnât slept in three days.
Which, in this city, narrowed nothing down.
The familiar smell of coffee beans wrapped around you the moment you stepped behind the counter.
Honestly, it was one of the few things you genuinely liked about your job.
The customers were a different story.
By eleven oâclock, youâd already been yelled at twice.
Once because a man believed waiting three minutes for coffee constituted a personal attack.
The second because somebody thought you controlled the weather.
âRough morning?â
You glanced up, the question knocking you out of your haze.
Your coworker was already grinning.
You sighed. âWhen isnât it?â
âFair.â
The lunch rush arrived shortly after.
Orders piled up. Names blurred together. Your feet hurt. Someone dropped their drink. Another person complained because their coffee was too hot.
You resisted the urge to suggest that coffee was generally known for that.
Then the bell above the door chimed.
Normally, you wouldn't have looked up.
Lunch was a bloody nightmare. There were six drinks waiting to be made, three customers already staring holes into the back of your head, and somebody was arguing over oat milk. You had better things to do.
Yet somehow your eyes lifted anyway.
The man who stepped through the door looked like trouble. Not due to anything he was doing, but because nobody should have looked like that.
For a second, your brain simply failed to process him properly.
Dark hair. Blue eyes. Tall enough to stand out without seeming imposing. Broad shoulders hidden beneath an ordinary jacket that somehow wasn't ordinary anymore because he was wearing it.
The details registered one at a time.
Like your mind was struggling to decide where to look first.
It wasn't just that he was handsome. Handsome was too simple a word. Too ordinary.
Handsome was the guy on a billboard, the actor in a movie, the model in a magazine. This felt different. More annoying.
Like somebody had reached into your head, extracted every preference you'd ever had, and assembled a person around them.
You immediately disliked him for it.
Unfortunately, that didn't make him any less attractive.
His smile appeared as he spoke to the customer in front of him. It transformed his entire face. Softened it.
Made him look approachable in a way beautiful people rarely managed.
The kind of smile that made strangers smile back. The kind that suggested he remembered names. Held doors open. Helped old ladies carry groceries.
He looked like someone that got people into trouble because they assumed nobody that nice-looking could possibly be dangerous.
You tore your eyes away.
Absolutely not.
You were not doing this today.
He was just a customer. A stupidly attractive customer. Nothing more.
Several minutes later, he stepped up to the register.
Up close was a mistake. You realised that immediately.
Most attractive people benefited from distance.
A few feet between you and them gave reality time to point out imperfections.
The lighting changed. The angles shifted. Something human emerged.
Not him.
If anything, proximity made things worse.
His eyes were brighter than you'd thought. Not just blue, more like a deep ocean colour that caught light. The kind that made direct eye contact feel strangely unfair.
There was a faint scar near his eyebrow. Another disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt.
Tiny imperfections that should have made him look less attractive.
Instead they only made him look real.
"Hi." His voice wrapped around the single syllable with effortless warmth.
He sounded so fucking pleased to be talking to you.
"What can I get for you?"
For a moment, he simply looked at you. Like he'd forgotten whatever he'd originally intended to say.
Then he smiled.
And suddenly it felt difficult to remember how to breathe.
"I'll take a large flat white."
Of course.
Of course the voice matched the face.
Why wouldn't it?
You entered the order before your brain could embarrass you.
The register beeped.
He handed over his card.
His fingers brushed yours for half a second.
It was nothing, really. Barely contact at all. Yet something strange tightened beneath your ribs.
Gone before you could identify it.
You frowned. Weird.
"Name?"
"Dick."
You blinked.
He looked entirely too pleased by your reaction.
"You serious?"
His eyes crinkled at the corners as his grin widened. The bastard somehow became even prettier. "I get that a lot."
A laugh escaped before you could stop it.
Hd let out a deep shaky breath, like he'd been hoping for it. Waiting for it.
As though making you laugh had accomplished something important. Like a strangers happiness mattered.
The look vanished so quickly you almost missed it.
For a brief, inexplicable moment, it felt less like meeting a stranger.
And more like being recognised.
The city belonged to him at night.
Not officially. Gotham belonged to no one. It clawed at anyone foolish enough to try and claim it.
But Dick knew its rhythms better than most.
He knew which rooftops held the best sightlines. Which alleyways concealed drug deals. Which fire escapes groaned beneath a person's weight. Which apartment windows stayed lit long after midnight because the people inside couldn't slep.
And he knew yours.
Perched on a neighboring rooftop, Dick lowered his binoculars slightly.
Your bedroom light had turned on twenty-three minutes before your alarm.
Again.
His jaw tightened.
The bond was never subtle.
He rubbed the back of his neck, the strain from yesterday's patrol still lingered. A bruised shoulder. A pulled muscle. Nothing serious.
Yet the thought of you waking up sore because of him left an uncomfortable weight in his chest.
You sat on the edge of your bed for several moments before standing. Slow and careful. Judging whether the pain was worth worrying about.
Dick recognised the routine.
You'd done it countless times.
The first time he'd seen it, he'd nearly broken a criminal's jaw.
It was then that he'd truly realised what years of sharing injuries with a vigilante must have been like.
You'd learned to evaluate pain before breakfast.
His fingers tightened around the binoculars.
You deserved answers.
You deserved him.
The thought arrived as naturally as breathing.
Dangerous. Wrong. Impossible to stop.
Dick watched you leave for work.
Then he followed.
He knew how surveillance worked. Knew exactly how easy it was to make someone feel watched.
So he stayed distant. A block behind, sometimes two.
Just another face in Gotham's endless crowd.
The irony wasn't lost on him.
Nightwing could disappear from sight whenever he wanted. Dick Grayson found excuses to linger near coffee shops.
By eleven, he was seated across the street with a newspaper he hadn't read once.
His attention remained fixed elsewhere.
On the way you tucked loose strands of hair behind your ear when concentrating. On the tiny crease that appeared between your eyebrows whenever customers irritated you. On the exhausted smile you gave coworkers despite clearly wanting to go home.
His chest ached.
He hated seeing you tired.
Hated seeing people take advantage of your kindness.
Hated that he couldn't simply walk inside and tell everyone to be careful with you.
Because you were important.
Because you mattered.
Because.. No.
Dick shut the thought down before it could finish.
This wasn't about ownership.
It couldn't be.
The soulmate bond wasn't ownership. It was connection.
Destiny.
A promise written into both of them before either had been born.
At least that was what he told himself whenever the possessive thoughts became harder to ignore.
You stood behind the register looking exhausted. A little annoyed. Ethereal.
Dick looked away before anyone could notice he'd been staring.
The line moved forward.
One customer. Two. Three. His pulse accelerated.
Ridiculous.
He'd fought assassins without flinching. Faced alien invasions. Stood against enemies capable of leveling cities. Yet somehow speaking to you felt more intimidating than any of them.
Because this mattered. Because you mattered.
The customer ahead of him finally left. And then it was his turn.
For a moment, neither of you spoke.
Your eyes lifted to meet his. Everything else disappeared. The noise. The conversations. The espresso machines. All of the buzzing was gone, just for a second.
Just long enough for Dick to feel the strange, impossible certainty he'd been carrying since the first moment he'd seen you.
There you are.
His soulmate.
His.
"Hi." The word came out softer than intended.
Your gaze remained fixed on him. Trying very hard not to stare.
Dick nearly smiled.
You had no idea.
No idea how many nights he'd spent imagining this conversation.
How many times he'd rehearsed introducing himself.
How often he'd wondered whether the bond would feel different when you finally met.
Instead, you asked professionally, "What can I get for you?"
For one disastrous second, Dick forgot the answer. Forgot he'd ordered the same thing repeatedly for weeks specifically because it was easy to remember. How human conversation worked.
You looked even better up close.
God, your eyes. Your voice. The tiny signs of exhaustion. The familiar shape of someone he'd spent months studying from a distance. Real.
You were finally real.
"I'll take a large flat white."
Smooth.
Very smooth.
Dick internally cringed.
You entered the order.
The register beeped.
He handed over his card.
Your fingers brushed his. The contact lasted less than a heartbeat. Lightning shot through him anyway.
The first touch.
The first real touch.
Dick forced himself not to react. Years of training saved him. Barely.
Then you asked the question he'd secretly been waiting for.
"Name?"
His mouth twitched. "Dick."
The blink you gave him was immediate.
Perfect.
Dick couldn't help smiling.
For the first time all day, genuine amusement broke through the tension knotting his chest.
"You serious?"
A laugh threatened to escape him.
God, he loved your voice already. Far too much.
"I get that a lot."
Then you laughed.
His breath caught.
Don't.
Don't do this.
Don't build a future out of a single laugh.
Yet he couldn't stop.
For a brief moment, your eyes met his again. Confusion flickered there. Recognition without understanding. A pull neither of you could explain.
If you could physically feel that he was someone who looked at you and saw the center of his world.
You frowned slightly.
Dickâs smile was warm. Harmless.
The same smile that convinced criminals he was merciful and civilians he was safe.
"Thanks," he said.
Then he stepped aside to wait for his coffee.
And for the first time in months, waiting didn't feel difficult. Because now you knew he existed.
Dick returned three days later.
Then again the day after that.
Soon, the visits became a part of his routine so deeply ingrained that he no longer questioned it.
Patrol.
Sleep.
Reports.
Coffee.
You.
The order never changed.
He learned your schedule without meaning to. Or maybe he had meant to. Dick wasn't entirely sure where the line had disappeared.
At some point, knowing things about you had stopped feeling like gathering information and started feeling lke breathing.
He knew which coworker made you laugh.
Which customer always left you irritated.
Which days exhaustion sat heavier on your shoulders.
He knew the difference between your real smiles and the fake ones. The difference between a smile that reached your eyes and one offered out of politeness. The difference mattered.
Everything about you mattered.
Sometimes guilt still surfaced. Usually late at night. During the quiet moments after patrol, when Gotham finally stopped screaming for a few hours and left him alone with his thoughts.
That was when he remembered the forum posts.
The complaints.
The frustration.
The resentment.
Years of it.
You didn't want a soulmate. Not one who left you waking up sore after fights. Or one whose life seemed determined to get itself stabbed, shot, electrocuted, and thrown off rooftops.
The thought should have hurt.
Instead, Dick found himself staring at the ceiling and feeling strangely calm.
Because you didn't hate him.
You hated the idea of him.
The unknown. The stranger connected to your life.
You hated the inconvenience.
The pain. Uncertainty.
But him?
You didn't know him yet.
How could you hate someone you didn't know?
You didn't know about the nights he spent bleeding through cracked armor because civilians needed help. About the disasters he'd prevented. The people he'd saved. The promises he'd kept.
You didn't know how many times he'd nearly told you the truth.
How many times he'd stood outside your apartment building and wondered if tonight should be the night. How often he thought about you. How he worried.
You didn't know.
But you would.
Eventually.
Dick believed that with absolute certainty.
Because every day gave him something. A conversation. A smile. A joke.
Tiny, worthless things.
Things nobody else would notice.
By the second week, you knew his order.
By the third, you smiled when he walked through the door.
The first time it happened, the entire day felt brighter.
Ridiculously embarrassing of him, he knew that.
Yet the memory replayed in his head for hours.
The way your face lit up with recognition. How you'd greeted him before he even reached the counter.
Like you were happy to see him.
Like he'd become part of your day too.
A crack in the wall.
A tiny one. But cracks spread. Eventually walls collapse.
Dick was patient enough to wait. To let things unfold naturally.
Most of the time.
You still didn't know the truth.
Didn't know that he could identify your footsteps.
Could find your apartment window from almost anywhere in the neighborhood.
Didn't know he'd memorised the route you walked home.
The backup routes too.
The places where the streetlights didn't work. The alleys he disliked.
The intersections with the highest crime rates.
Important information. Necessary information.
Someone had to know those things. Someone had to keep you safe.
The sun had already disappeared. Streetlights painted gold across the pavement.
You looked tired. A little cold.
Still breathtaking.
Always so fucking ethereal.
His chest tightened with pure unfiltered need.
The overwhelming, consuming need to make sure nothing bad ever touched you again. To stand between you and every ugly thing Gotham could throw your way. To erase every danger before it reached you. To make the world safe enough that you'd never have to worry.
Hell, even the need to just push you down and capture your mouth in a kiss so intimate that youâd never want to let go.
The feeling had become stronger lately. Harder to ignore.
Before, you had been a concept. A hopeful possibility.
Now you were you.
You had a face. A laugh. A favorite drink. A life.
And every day made the thought of losing you more unbearable.
You disappeared around the corner.
Dick waited.
Five seconds. Ten. Then he rose from his seat. Following. Never too close. Never enough to be noticed. Just enough.
To intervene if something happened.
Making sure you got home safely.
Just enough to reassure the restless part of himself that always seemed to whisper what if?
What if someone followed you first?
What if someone hurt you?
What if someone took you away?
The thoughts were irrational. Dick knew they were.
Most people walked home every day without incident. But most people weren't you.
His jaw tightened.
That was the difference.
People talked about soulmates as though finding them was the end of the story. Like destiny did all the work.
As if fate guaranteed a happy ending.
Dick knew better.
Finding you wasn't the difficult part. Keeping you safe was. Protecting you was. Making sure the universe didn't decide to take back the greatest thing it had ever given him was.
His gaze remained fixed on your retreating figure. Unwavering.
The possessiveness no longer startled him.
That battle had ended weeks ago.
Every justification had been exhausted. Every argument dismantled.
The truth remained.
You were woven through his life. Through his thoughts. Through every future he could imagine.
His soulmate.
His person.
The one thing in this city he couldn't lose.
And somewhere along the way, the distinction between wanting you and needing you had quietly disappeared.
Dick watched you disappear into your apartment building. Only then did the tension leave his shoulders.
Safe.
The word settled warmly inside his chest.
Safe for another night.
His eyes lingered on the illuminated window that he knew belonged to you.
Terrifyingly devoted.
The universe had tied your lives together years ago.
And Dick had no plans on fighting fate.
And if the day ever came when something, or someone, tried to take you away from him, Gotham would learn exactly how dangerous Nightwing could be when the only thing he loved was threatened.
The first time you noticed something was wrong, it didn't feel important. Just strange.
"Wait."
Your friend blinked across the table. "What?"
"You got offered a job in BlĂŒdhaven?"
"Yeah?"
You frowned. "When?"
"A few months ago."
A few months ago.
That couldn't be right.
You'd applied for that same position. Gone through three interviews. Spent weeks waiting for a response.
And then nothing.
No rejection.
No acceptance.
Nothing.
"I never heard back."
"Really?" they said. "That's weird."
It was weird. You'd checked your emails obsessively at the time.
Nothing.
Not even spam.
Eventually you'd assumed they'd gone with another candidate.
The conversation moved on.
You didn't.
ââââ
Then another thing happened. And another.
"..You never told me your landlord sold the building."
Dick looked up from where he was cooking. "What?"
"The building."
You leaned against the counter. "The landlord was apparently trying to sell it last year."
Something flashed across his face.
"Huh."
"He said he couldn't find a buyer."
Dick hummed. "Guess it wasn't the right time."
You frowned.
That wasn't what the landlord had said. The exact words had been: "Every buyer that showed interest pulled out at the last minute."
ââââ
Then there was your ex.
Not an ex, technically. Just someone you'd gone on a few dates with before Dick.
Someone who suddenly moved overseas without warning.
You only found out because you bumped into one of their friends.
"Yeah, he was furious."
"What?"
"They withdrew the visa investigation thing eventually, but by then he'd already accepted another position."
You blinked. "The what?"
The friend frowned. "You didn't know?"
No.
No, you definitely hadn't known.
ââââ
The pieces don't fit together immediately.
Not until one late night, sitting on Dick's couch.
When his phone lit up.
You hadnât even meant to look, the flash just caught your attention. The âimage of the dayâ was a photograph.
Your photograph.
Not a recent one. Not one youâd sent him.
A candid picture.
Taken months before you met.
You were standing outside of your apartment.
"..Dick."
His entire body goes still at your tone.
Like prey hearing a gun click.
Slowly, he looks up.
You hold out the phone.
The photograph staring back at both of you.
Your pulse begins to hammer. "When did you take this?"
Nothing.
For a second, Dick just looks at you.
Then at the photo.
Then back.
ââŠBefore we met."
Your stomach drops. "What?"
"I took it before we met." His voice is calm. Too gentle. The same voice he uses when you're upset.
Like he was expecting to tell you that everything was okay.
Your laugh comes out strained. Unsteady. "You're joking."
"No." He doesn't look ashamed.
If he looked guilty, maybe this would make sense. Instead, he looks concerned.
Concerned about you.
Like you're the one having a difficult time.
"Dick, that's stalking."
His jaw tightens immediately. Hurt.
Like you've accused him of something unfair.
"I was making sure you were safe."
"No." You stand. "Dick-"
Your heart is racing now. Too fast. "What the fuck do you mean you were watching me?"
And for the first time since you've known him, Dick looks frustrated.
Not because he got caught. Because you're not understanding.
"You lived alone."
"Dick-"
"You walked home after dark."
"Listen to me!"
"There were three muggings within four blocks of your apartment." His voice rises. Emotion breaking through.
"And I knew what Gotham was like."
You freeze. He sounds desperate. Terrified.
"I couldn't just leave you there." His eyes are shining now. Raw.
Honest.
The truth finally spilling out.
"You think I wanted to scare you?" His voice cracks.
"I spent twenty years looking for you."
You take a step backward.
Dick notices immediately. The devastation that crosses his face is instantaneous.
He actually believes that he's innocent. That every line he crossed was reasonable.
Because every choice was made for the same reason.
Love.
And suddenly all those little coincidences don't feel like coincidences anymore.
The failed job.
The vanished opportunities.
The relationships that somehow never worked out.
The people who drifted away.
The life that kept shrinking until Dick occupied most of it.
The door slammed hard enough to rattle the frame. For a second, neither of uni moved.
You stood frozen in the hallway outside Dick's apartment, one hand still wrapped around the doorknob, your pulse pounding so hard it made your ears ring. The argument replayed itself in fragments. Accusations, denials, half-finished explanations. None of it felt real.
Behind the door, you heard Dick's footsteps. Part of you expected the handle to turn. Expected him to come after you. To stop you before you left. To grab your wrist, block the doorway, force the conversation to continue.
Instead, the footsteps stopped. You could picture him standing there on the other side of the door. Not chasing you. Not arguing. Just... standing there. Devastated.
If he'd gotten angry, maybe this would have been easier. If he'd yelled, if he'd lied, if he'd given you a reason to hate him, maybe the hollow ache opening inside your chest wouldn't have felt so unbearable.
Instead, he'd looked heartbroken. Like he was the victim. Like you were the one tearing something precious apart.
The walk home passed in a blur. You barely remembered unlocking your apartment. The second the door shut behind you, instinct took over. Deadbolt. Chain. The secondary lock.
You checked the windows twice. Then a third time.
Only when every entrance was secured did you allow yourself to breathe.
Your phone vibrated. The screen lit up. Dick.
You stared at the name. The call rang until it stopped. A second call appeared almost immediately. Then a third. The messages started after that.
Can we talk? Please answer. I just want to know you're okay.
For a dangerous second, your thumb hovered over the screen. Then you blocked him.
The number disappeared. You blocked his social media. His email. His Spotify. Every account you could think of. Anything connected to him. Anything that could give him a way back in.
When you finally finished, the apartment felt unnaturally quiet. You'd wanted silence.
Hadn't you?
So why did it feel like something was missing? Why did the absence feel so loud? Sleep never came. Every time you closed your eyes, another memory surfaced.
The internship opportunity that had vanished after months of promising interviews. The friendship that had somehow dissolved without explanation. The coworkers who'd grown distant. The photograph.
At four in the morning, you found yourself sitting on the couch wrapped in a blanket, staring into the darkness. The city lights beyond your apartment window painted faint reflections across the floor.
You couldn't stop thinking. Every memory felt poisoned now. Every coincidence felt deliberate. How much of your life had actually been yours?
How many choices had been choices at all?
You didn't notice yourself drifting into a shallow sleep until your alarm exploded beside your head. You jolted awake.
Immediately regretted it. Pain tore through your leg so violently that for a split second you genuinely thought something had exploded. A scream ripped from your throat. White-hot agony shot from your shin to your hip.
The room tilted. Your knee gave out. You hit the floor hard enough to knock the breath from your lungs. The impact barely registered. All you could feel was the pain. It burned. Throbbed. Pulsed with every heartbeat.
You curled instinctively around your leg, gasping for air through clenched teeth. "What the fuck!" The words dissolved into another strangled cry.
Minutes passed. Or maybe longer.
Time became difficult to measure when every movement felt like driving a knife through bone.
Eventually you managed to drag yourself onto the couch. Sweat clung to your skin. Your stomach churned. The pain wasn't normal. It wasn't a cramp. Wasn't a pulled muscle. It felt broken. A fresh fracture.
Then a bitter laugh escaped your throat. Of fucking course.
Youâd barely survived the worst night of your life and apparently your soulmate had decided now was the perfect time to break something. Again.
The bitter laugh that escaped you sounded almost hysterical. The empty apartment offered no response. Not that you expected one.
Your soulmate had never apologised before.
Several hours later, three sharp knocks echoed through the apartment. You froze.
The sound cut through the silence like a gunshot.
Another knock followed.
Then a familiar voice. Every muscle in your body locked. You remained motionless.
Maybe he'd leave.
Another knock sounded, softer this time. Almost hesitant. "âŠPlease open the door." The concern in his voice made your stomach twist.
You hated that it still affected you. Hated that some part of you still wanted to believe him.
Then came the sentence that made your blood turn to ice. "You shouldn't be standing."
Everything stopped. Your breathing. Your thoughts. Your heartbeat. Slowly, very slowly, you turned toward the door. The apartment suddenly felt too small. Too quiet.
"Dick?" A pause.
Then: "I brought groceries." His voice sounded tired. Careful. Like he was approaching a wounded animal. "I also got pain medication."
You stared at the door. A sick feeling began unfurling in your stomach.
"Can you let me in?" No. No, no, no. Maybe coincidence. Maybe a lucky guess. Maybe-
"You need to stay off that leg." The world seemed to tilt. Your pulse thundered.
How? You hadn't told anyone. You hadn't gone to the hospital. You hadn't even texted anyone. There was no way he could know. Unless-
The thought hit so hard it felt physical. You forced yourself upright and limped toward the door. Each step sent another wave of pain through your leg.
By the time you reached it, your hands were shaking. You opened the door only a few inches.
Dick stood on the other side. One arm loaded with grocery bags. Takeout containers balanced in the other hand. A bottle of painkillers tucked beneath his elbow.
The second the door opened, his gaze dropped.Straight to your injured leg.
"There it is." The words slipped out before he could stop them. His expression tightened immediately. "You really shouldn't be putting weight on-"
"How do you know?"
Silence.The question landed between them like a blade. Dick froze.
You felt your heartbeat climbing higher and higher. "How do you know my leg is injured?"
For the first time since you'd met him, Dick looked caught off guard. Not angry. Not defensive. Caught.
Something that looked dangerously close to guilt crossed his face. And suddenly you understood enough to make your blood run cold.
The fracture hadn't happened to your soulmate. It had happened because of them.
Dick's expression changed immediately. Not much, most people probably wouldn't have noticed, but you'd spent months learning the subtle shifts in his face. The slight tightening around his eyes. The way his shoulders stiffened.
"Angel-"
You took another step backward on instinct. Pain shot through your injured leg. A sharp hiss escaped you before you could swallow it.
Dick flinched. The reaction was instantaneous. His hand jerked forward as though he meant to catch you before he stopped himself. The concern that flashed across his face was so immediate, so visceral, that it made your stomach turn.
For a horrible second, you couldn't stop thinking about it. The way he'd known. The way he'd looked directly at your leg. The medication tucked under his arm. The certainty in his voice when he'd told you not to stand.
Maybe he really had felt it. Maybe every pulse of pain that had left you curled up on the floor this morning had reached him too.
"You knew." The accusation hung between you.
Dick's jaw tightened. You stared at him. Stared at the man standing in your doorway carrying groceries and painkillers like some devoted boyfriend stopping by to take care of you after a bad day.
"You knew you were my soulmate." For a second, one stupid, desperate second, you hoped he'd deny it.
Maybe there was another explanation. Maybe you were wrong. Maybe this entire nightmare had gotten out of control.
Dick looked down. "...Yeah."
Every injury. Every unexplained ache. Every ruined plan because somebody you had never met couldn't stop getting themselves hurt.
You remembered sitting in emergency rooms as a teenager, trying to explain symptoms doctors couldn't understand. Missing school because you'd woken up unable to walk on an ankle you'd never injured. The migraines. The broken fingers. The bruises.
The soulmate bond had shaped your life whether you'd wanted it to or not. And all this time, it had been him.
Not a stranger. Not some faceless person halfway across the world. Dick. Your Dick.
The man who knew how you took your coffee. The man who remembered insignificant details about conversations you'd forgotten having.
The man you'd trusted enough to love.
Your hand found the wall beside you before you even realised you were reaching for support.
Dick took a step forward automatically.
You recoiled.
The look that crossed his face was immediate and devastating.
He stopped moving at once. "Angel..."
"How long?" Your voice sounded strange. Thin. Distant. "How long have you known?"
For the first time since arriving, Dick looked genuinely uncomfortable. Ashamed.
His gaze dropped briefly to the floor. "Eight months."
"Eight months?"
"Angel, I know how bad that sounds-"
"You knew for eight months." Every word came out sharper than the last. "You knew and you didn't tell me."
"I wanted to." The answer came immediately. Too quickly. Like he'd rehearsed this argument a hundred times. "I did. God, I wanted to tell you from the beginning."
"Then why didn't you?"
Dick looked away. That was answer enough.
Because he'd been watching. Learning. Getting closer. Fitting himself into your life before you knew what he was.
"You let me hate them."
Something flickered across his face. A strange sadness. Not guilt exactly. Something closer to regret. "I never wanted that."
"You let me spend years hating my soulmate." His expression tightened. "I know."
"You let me blame them for everything."
"I know." The quiet sincerity of the response only made you angrier. He wasn't denying it. Wasn't making excuses. He understood exactly what he'd done. And somehow, he still thought he'd been right.
The apartment fell silent.
Dick stood near the door surrounded by grocery bags and takeout containers. The sight would have been almost domestic under different circumstances. Ordinary.
Something in his expression softened. "You don't have to do this anymore."
You frowned. "What are you talking about?"
Dick hesitated. For the first time since arriving, he seemed unsure of how to explain himself. "..You've spent your entire life paying for things that weren't your fault."
The words were quiet. Measured. His gaze dropped briefly to your injured leg before returning to your face. "I know every hospital visit."
A chill crawled down your spine.
His voice grew softer. "I know every surgery. Every cast. Every time you had to cancel plans because I did something reckless." The guilt in his expression looked genuine. "I know what it cost you."
"Dick."
"I do." His voice cracked slightly. The sound startled you.
"I know exactly what I've put you through."
For a moment neither of you spoke. Then Dick slowly set the groceries on the floor. "You shouldn't have had to deal with any of it alone."
Something about the direction of the conversation suddenly felt wrong. Dangerous. "Dick..." "I mean it." His eyes never left yours.
"You shouldn't have had to worry about medical bills because I got shot. You shouldn't have had to miss work because I decided jumping off rooftops sounded like a good idea. You shouldn't have had to build your life around my mistakes."
A humorless laugh escaped him. "You definitely shouldn't have had to spend years wondering who was responsible." The guilt in his voice was so real it almost hurt to listen to.
And somehow that made what came next even worse. "But you don't have to do that anymore."
The knot in your stomach tightened. "What does that mean?"
Dick looked genuinely confused by the question. As though the answer was obvious. "As long as I'm here, you're not dealing with any of it alone."
"You don't need to worry about rent." The words landed heavily.
You stared at him, dumbfounded. "What?"
"I'll take care of it." "No."
"You don't have to keep working two jobs." "No."
"You don't have to stress about groceries or bills or whether you can afford physical therapy."
"Dick!"
His voice remained calm. Patient. Like he was trying to explain something simple. Something reasonable. "I can handle all of that."
"You can't just decide that." "Why not?" The question came out so naturally that it stopped you cold.
Dick frowned slightly, confused. "As far as I'm concerned, taking care of you is my responsibility."
Your heart dropped. The conviction in his voice was absolute. Not possessive in the way you'd expected. Like he wasn't describing what he wanted. He was describing reality.
"You don't owe me anything," he continued quietly. "You don't have to love me back. You don't even have to forgive me. But I'm not going to stand there and keep watching you suffer because of things I've done."
His gaze held yours. Steady. Intense. Terrifyingly sincere. "You've carried this alone for long enough."
The apartment suddenly felt too small. Too warm. Too difficult to breathe in. Because you finally understood. Dick wasn't asking for a relationship. He wasn't asking for forgiveness. He wasn't even asking for another chance.
He was asking you to hand him control.
The first escape attempt had been almost gentle. A mistake, in hindsight. Youâd underestimated him. Underestimated his understanding of you.
By the time you reached the outer perimeter, your leg had already started to fail in ways that didnât make sense at first. Pain bloomed without warning, sharp, targeted, precise, as if your body had been waiting for permission to collapse.
It was him. Dick Grayson had already noticed you leaving. Already made his choice.
He carried you back without comment when he found you kneeling in the rain like youâd simply run out of endurance. Like your body had just⊠stopped cooperating. Like he couldnât even feel his own pain shooting through him.
For three days after that, he barely spoke. Not anger. Not even punishment. Adjustment. Because he was learning how far he could push the bond, and how far he could push himself.
The second attempt cost you more. Not because he was harsher, because he was faster. You barely remember leaving the room. You remember waking up in a different one. Reinforced, seamless, wrong in ways your instincts couldnât map.
Dick sat beside the bed like heâd never moved. Like time had folded around him. âYou dislocated your shoulder,â he said calmly, as though that explained everything.
You tried to sit up. Your body refused. His hand rested on your wrist before you could test it further. âYou pushed too hard,â he added. âI had to stabilise it.â âI didnât-â
âYes,â he interrupted, still calm. âYou did.â But what he didnât say, what you only began to understand later, was that he had done the same thing to himself at the exact moment you tried to leave.
The third time you tried, there was no hallway. Just motion that died halfway through becoming action. Your body locking down in controlled, precise waves of agony. Like a switch had been thrown. And somewhere behind you, his voice. âI told you not to do that again.â
When you woke, your ankle was wrapped. Your phone was gone. The doors had changed again.
That was when you understood the rule. You could try. He would let you try. Not because he expected you to succeed, but because every attempt gave him data. Every spike of your pain told him what the bond could tolerate. And every time you pushed too far, he matched you. By breaking himself just enough that the connection snapped you both back into place.
Now, in what he liked to call the living room, too controlled to feel like a home, you listened to him in the kitchen. Normal sounds. Water running. A cup set down carefully. Like nothing was wrong.
You swallowed. Your voice weak from disuse. â..I want to leave.â
âYou donât want that,â he mumbled, not looking up from the pan.
âI do.â
âNo,â he said gently. âYou want the version of it that doesnât hurt.â He walked patiently over to you. His hand lifted, hovered near your shoulder, then settled. Warm. Certain.
â.. I wonât let it get that far.â
Your throat tightened. âYouâre hurting me.â
This time, he didnât deny it immediately.
He just looked at you for a long moment. Then, âNo,â he said quietly. âIâm stopping you from breaking past the point where thereâs no coming back.â
âYou donât get to leave anymore,â he said at last. âNot like that.â Not a threat. A conclusion.
âAnd you wonât try again,â he added, softer.
âBecause I wonât let either of us survive what happens when you do.â
Then he turned back toward the kitchen. As if the decision had already been made. As if your life together had always been structured this way.
And in a sense, it had.
10K+ Words, 61K+ Characters, 1K+ sentences, 36 min average reading time, 58 min average speaking time.
I really enjoy how the different bonds are being handled. That, along with the fact that they are different soulmate tropes. I feel you don't see the same world sharing multiple variants? Maybe I don't read enough soulmate stories, haha! Anyways THIS IS GREAT
You pace the length of your living room, trying to process what youâve just learned, âso, let me get this straight, Mr. Rivers: my mother is dead?â
âThat is correct.â
âAnd - even though I havenât spoken to her in over six years - Iâm named in her will?â
âThat is also correct.â
God, part of you wants to strangle this lawyer, âand now you want me to go to some office building uptown - which will take me at least an hour to get to, by the way - today because my mother left me something that has to be opened in person?â
âYes.â
âAnd you canât come to me becauseâŠ?â
âYour mother named someone else in the will. We have to meet them.â
Jesus Christ, this is not how you wanted to spend your day off, âfine. Iâll be there this afternoon,â you hang up before Mr. Rivers can say anything else.
The rain once again fills the unnatural silence of your apartment. You havenât thought about your mother in years. In fact, youâve made a rather valiant effort to pretend that you never had a mother. What could she possibly want to give you? Who else is named in the will? Why did that lawyer seem so freaked out by a simply estate execution?
Well, you guess thereâs only one way to find out.
If you were feeling uncharitable - which you are, considering the fact that youâre completely soaked by the trip over here - you would describe Mr. Rivers as a mousy little man. His suit is cheap, his hair is thin, and his eyes hold a sort of feral anxiety common in captive animals. Despite the rain, heâs pacing outside the building when you arrive.
âYouâre late,â itâs not a statement, itâs an accusation.
âThe train was delayed.â
âFine, justâŠfollow me and be quiet,â Mr. Rivers practically hisses before leading you inside an aggressively bland office building.
The sleek, modern interior of the building gives absolutely no clues as to what happens here. Youâre almost certain itâs impossible for a building to be any more nondescript, none of the offices even have signs in front of them. The office Mr. Rivers leads you into is more of the same: cold, modern, and lacking any distinguishing features. The only thing with any sort of personality in the room is a large painting hanging on one wall. Itâs modern art, of course, but itâs the good sort of modern art. Clearly someone actually cared about this piece. It wasnât made merely for some tax evasion scheme.
âLovely, isnât it? Itâs one of my wifeâs favorites,â someone speaks from behind you, their voice deep and confident.
You recognize that voice? Why do you recognize it? OhâŠthatâs right: youâve heard it on the court recordings from Matt and Foggyâs biggest case. You recognize the voice because it belongs to Wilson Fisk.
The other person named in your motherâs will is Wilson fucking Fisk.
You slowly turn, trying to hide your sheer panic. Judging by the way Fiskâs eyes narrow, youâre not doing a very good job, âare you alright, my dear?â The sound of genuine concern in his voice is jarring.
âYeah, IâmâŠIâm fine, sorry.â
Fisk is already guiding you to a small couch near the window before you even finish speaking, âthereâs no need to apologize, the news of your motherâs death must have been upsetting.â
You nod slightly, looking down at your hands with a small sigh, âhowâŠhow did you know my mother?â
âI had a brief relationship with her as a young man.â
âOh,â you have enough self-control to keep your next question to yourself: why the hell would she name you in her will?
Mr. Rivers clears his throat, âthank you for coming on such sort notice, sir,â heâs only talking to Fisk. Treating you as if you donât even exist. Granted, this is not the first time a lawyer has ignored you in favor of someone more powerful, but itâs particularly irritating when youâre here because of your mother. Mr. Rivers leans in slightly, lowering his voice as he speaks with a conspiratorial air, âIâm sure this is just some stunt.â
You scoff. Your mother was many things, but a liar was not one of them. If she named Wilson Fisk in her will, she had a good reason.
Fisk seems to agree with you as he glares at Mr. Rivers, âyou said there were letters?â
âYes, here,â Mr. Rivers digs through his briefcase and pulls out two envelopes. One of them is unceremoniously shoved into your hands.
You read the letter. Then re-read. Then read it a third time in the hope that something has changed. Nothing has. The words on the page remain the same, no matter how much you wish they would say something different:
Y/F/N,
I know I am the last person you want to hear from. I wasnât a good mother, and you have every right to be angry with me. Iâve worked hard to respect your desire for no contact, but Iâm afraid I must let you down one last time. There is something you must know.
Wilson Fisk is your father.
Wilson was not aware of your birth. He did not abandon you. I kept you from him because I was scared of losing you.
I hope someday you can forgive my cowardice.
- Mom
i would love some platonic yan hannigram if thatâs on the table >:D
I keep thinking about platonic yan Hannigram with picky eater! reader... Poor Hannibal tries to impress them with fancy food at a dinner party and they don't like it đ
"How do you eat this? It's basically raw." You mumble with a frown, using your fork to poke at the duck slices cooked to a perfect rare.
"It's not raw, my dear. It's rare and entirely safe to eat." Hannibal responds patiently,
You side eye him and look down at your plate, poking the meat again. A trickle of cooked blood mixes with the sauce and you grimace.
"It's squishy and it bleeds. It's raw. Aren't you supposed to be, like, a doctor or something?" You ask, playing it off as a joke but clearly concerned about Hannibal's mental well-being if he wants you to eat something that you deem to be entirely inedible.
Will snorts. Hannibal gives him a look.
"How about you try a little? I don't think that Hannibal is going to feed us dessert if you don't at least try it." Will says gently, his coaxing being used as a form of apology to his partner.
You nod and begrudgingly take a bite of the mashed potatoes. They're buttery and flavorful, suiting your tastes perfectly. You eat all of the potatoes that aren't touching the sauce or duck blood.
"The potatoes are really good." You say after a few moments and Hannibal's expression softens slightly.
"You're not going to eat the rest of them?" He asks.
"No. It's got blood on it." You say firmly, examining the rest of your plate to find something else you're willing to eat.
Hannibal takes note of all of your preferences. He needs to know what you like for when he and Will take you home. Cooking for you while maintaining his own refined palette will be a culinary challenge but it's one that he knows that he will relish. Both he and Will are eager to have a child to raise together.
A/N: It's me, Vik, back again with a yandere fic that absolutely no one asked for! I was rewatching tasm 2 & thinking "god, what would happen if like literally anyone was even slightly kind to Max," and then I realized that I can write what would happen. So here it is!
CW: Electrocution, Guns, Kidnapping (ish?), General Yandere Things
Youâve never been very good at minding your own business.
Personally, youâve never considered that to be a character flaw. If you listened to your mother, however, you would think it was one of the worst things about you. As your neighbor carries you across the New York skyline, youâre starting to wish that you had listened to your mother.Â
It started innocently enough. Your neighborâs door was open, and really, you were just being a good neighbor by checking in.Â
You peer curiously inside the dark doorway, knocking gently on the frame, âMax? Are you in there? Do you know your door is open?âÂ
Thereâs no reply, just a strange buzzing coming from deeper in the apartment. You shrug and go to close the door, only to jump back in surprise when the handle shocks you. A voice breaks through the buzzing, âyou remember my name?â
You cautiously enter the apartment, concerned that your neighbor may be sick or injured, âMax? Are you feeling okay? Your voice sounds weir-â Your question is cut off when you finally see Max. Based on the strange blue glow beneath his skin and the fact that heâs actively sparking electricity, youâre going to guess that heâs not okay.
Max slowly tilts his head, repeating his question, âyou remember my name?â
âYes? YouâŠyouâve lived next to me for like two years, Max. Why wouldnât I remember your name?â
âNo one remembers me, Iâm a nobody.â
You frown, trying to move closer to Max without getting zapped. A sane person would probably try to put more distance between themselves and possible electrocution, not less, but this is Max. The guy you talk to in the elevator most days, the one that helped fix an electrical issue in your apartment when the landlord was dodging your calls. You have to at least try to help him, âyouâre not a nobody, Max. I know you. And, I mean, I donât know if weâre friends but Iâd like to think that weâre friendly.â
âI donât have any friends.â
The closer you get, the worse Max looks. Something is very wrong, âwell, I can be your friend. And, uh, welllâŠfriends help each other, right? I think you could really use some help right now.â You pause, realizing you canât just bring your weird glowing neighbor to a hospital, âI donât really know how to help, but maybe we could find Spider-Man?â
Electricity sparks wildly, moving far closer than youâre comfortable with, âSpider-Man is a liar! He only pretended to be my friend!â You flinch as Max turns to you with clear anger, âare you a liar, y/n?â
âNo! No! Of course not, I wouldnât lie to you,â you desperately search for a way to diffuse this situation. Maybe you could just change the subject? Thatâs a stupid idea, but your only other option appears to be death by electrocution, âhey, Max! I just remembered, itâs your birthday today, right?â
He pauses, the electricity calming down slightly, âit is my birthdayâŠâ
âGreat! I actually have a gift for you!â Your voice is just a bit too cheerful to be genuine, but Max doesnât seem to notice.
âYeah! HereâŠâ you dig through your bag, pulling out a little handmade bracelet, âitâs not a lot or anything, but I figured since you seemed interested in my bracelets the other day youâd maybe like one of your own? I didnât really know what color you like, so I went with rainbow beads and added your name in blackâŠâ Oh god. Youâre rambling. Youâre rambling and Max is just staring at you. Youâre totally going to die. Youâre going to die because you suck at gifts. Also because your neighbor is insane, but the gift thing will definitely be a factor.Â
You close your eyes, waiting for the inevitable end.
And waiting.
And waiting.Â
Jesus, whatâs taking him so long? You slowly open your eyes and see that Max isâŠcrying? What the hell?
âYou made this? For me?â
âUhâŠyeah?â You tentatively hold out the bracelet.
 The electricity dies completely as Max takes the bracelet, âI havenât gotten a gift in a long time.â Max slips on the bracelet, smiling slightly. Youâre about to speak when the sound of sirens fill the air.
âUhâŠMax? Are those heading here?âÂ
The electricity starts back up, only this time it avoids you completely. Youâre standing in the center of Maxâs apartment like youâre in the eye of the storm, watching as walls and furniture are struck. Even through the noise of Maxâs powers, you hear heavy boots on the stairs. A lot of heavy boots.Â
You scream as cops rush into the apartment, already firing. You run to hide behind Max, maintaining a death grip on his shoulders, âMax! Theyâre shooting at us! WHY ARE THEY SHOOTING AT US?!â
Max lifts you into his arms, forming a barrier of electricity around the two of you as he easily climbs out the window. You scream again as he carries you inhumanly fast through the city, seemingly jumping between power lines, âMax! Whatâs going on!?â
âIâll explain soon, y/n. For now, just know that Iâll protect you. Youâre my friend, my only friend, and Iâm not going to lose you.âÂ
You look down at the small bracelet still on Maxâs wrist and regret every life choice youâve ever made. You really, really wish you had just minded your own fucking business.Â
Yandere Norman Osborn/Green Goblin and Daughter!Reader
Iâm re-watching the og spider-man movies as a refresher for some asks, but i got hella sidetracked by Norman. Also, shout out to @darkshadow90 for their Norman & daughter!reader stuff, Iâd definitely recommend it (˶ᔠᔠá”˶) âčđč
Anyways, please enjoy whatever this is.
WC: 0.7k
CW: Controlling behavior, Obsession, Possessiveness, Foul Language, Captivity, General Yandere Things
Although you and Harry are twins, your relationships with your father couldnât be more different. Unlike Harry, you were not a healthy, active child. In fact, you were rather sickly. Your frequent bouts of illness reminded Norman of your mother, and that terrified him. Even after you grew out of your childhood weakness, that fear never left your father. His tendency to focus all of his attention on you and ignore Harry never left either.
Maybe thatâs why you didnât notice your fatherâs increasingly possessive behavior until it was too late.
It was small at first. Your father started calling you more frequently, but you told yourself that was because there was a nasty flu going around. Your father just wanted to make sure you werenât sick. Then he started showing up at your university for random visits, but you remembered that the anniversary of your motherâs death was coming soon. Your father just wanted to be close to his family. Then he started asking for your location, but, really, you couldnât be too careful with masked freaks like Spider-Man hanging around. Your father just wanted to keep you safe.
It wasnât until after the attack at the parade that you finally noticed the changes. Your father had always been a little overprotective, but he went into overdrive in the wake of the attack. He insisted you moved back home, saying that it wasnât safe for a woman to live alone in the city. He pressured you to take time off of school, just until that horrible Green Goblin was caught. Itâs true that you werenât on that balcony like Harry was, but what if you had been? It wasnât safe for you to go out anymore.
The final straw was your father cutting you off from your friends. The two of you got into a heated argument when he ordered you to stop hanging out with Peter. You decided you needed some time away, so you packed a bag and went to your fatherâs study to say goodbye.
You really, really wish you hadnât done that.
You open the door and youâre stunned by what greets you: your father, kneeling on the ground in front of Green Goblinâs mask, seemingly having a conversation with himself. You couldnât even really process the situation, all you could do was stare.
Your father pauses, as if listening to someone, before his eyes dart to you. He forces a smile, but you can practically see the manic energy buzzing around him, âsweetheart? What are you doing down here? Youâre supposed to be in bed.â
âIâŠIâŠâ
Your fatherâs eyes narrow as he sees the bag in your hand, âyouâre not going somewhere, are you, sweetheart?â
âI justâŠI thought Iâd stay with Harry for a few days?â You offer weakly.
âYou mean stay with Parker,â He stalks over to you, grabbing your arm, âyouâre going to betray me. To leave me just like your whore of a mother.â
You gasp, your shrinking in on yourself as you try not to cry, âd-daddy? Whatâs going on? Why would you say something like that? WhyâŠâ your eyes dart towards the mask, âwhy is that thing here?â
âOh, sweetheart, please donât cry,â your father lets go of you, moving instead to dry your tears, âyou donât have to be afraid. We would never hurt you. After all, the Goblin loves you as much as I do.â
âWeâ? âThe Goblinâ? Something is very, very wrong here and you need to get away while you still can. Your father is no longer holding you, so you turn and run towards the front door.
A voice that is both your fatherâs and not your fatherâs rings out behind you. âYou are too weak, Norman. Iâll take care of this.â
You barely hear him, too focused on getting away, but it seems your efforts are futile. Your father - no, the Goblin - catches up to you far too quickly. Strong arms wrap around you and hold you against his chest. No matter how much you struggle, you canât get free. He leans down and hisses, ânot so fast there, princess. We wouldnât want you to get into any trouble, would we?â
You whimper, âplease, daddy. Let me go. Iâm scared.â
The Goblin just laughs, âsorry princess, but your daddyâs not here right now. Youâll have to deal with me.â
I'm writing a part two to "The Deal" right now, which is veering into a slightly darker yandere Frank than what I'd usually write. That fits the first part and is also going to be sick but like...why's Frank being so mean (â â„â ïčâ â„â )
Anyways, I'm counterbalancing that with some softer yandere Frank. Y'all are getting that first because "The Deal" Part 2 still needs more work.
Things You Shouldn't Do When You're Kidnapped by Frank Castle (Platonic Yandere Frank)
CW: Serious Injury, Blood, Reader Vaguely Mentions Wanting to Die but Theyâre Just Being Dramatic, Kidnapping, General Yandere Things
Look.
Youâre well aware that of the many items on the list of 'things you shouldnât do when you're kidnapped by Frank fucking Castle,' punching through a window in some misguided attempt at rebellion was probably near the top. In your defense, no one really thinks about how many major arteries are in their arms until they cut one of them.
Thereâs blood everywhere: the window, the floor, your clothes, your hair, even the ceiling. It looks like a low budget horror movie, complete with your body on the ground. After two failed attempts to get up, you resigned yourself to laying here until you either die of blood loss or Frank comes home. Whichever comes first.
Personally, youâre rooting for blood loss, but the sound of the front door opening tells you that Frank getting home has won. Fuck. You close your eyes and will yourself to bleed a little faster - Frank canât yell at you if youâre unconscious.
âDoll, I grabbed dinner from that Thai place you like,â Frank moves deeper into the apartment when you donât respond. âDarlinâ? Where areâŠâ He stops dead in his tracks when he sees you.
Time stretches into an eternity. This is Frankâs worst nightmare. You, his baby, the one good thing he had left in this world, are lying there damn near inches from death. His head swims as he rushes to you, âno, no, no, not you. Y/N? Baby? Can you hear me?â
You force your eyes open, looking up at Frank with blurred vision. Part of you knows that the Frank Castle standing above you is not your helpful next door neighbor. Part of you knows the Frank Castle standing above you is a man who betrayed your trust, a man you swore to never forgive. But...this isn't really forgiveness, right? You can go back to being mad at him once you're better. Maybe just this once it could be like it used to. You whine softly, reaching out for him, âhurtsâŠmake it stop.â
Frank picks you up, careful to not jostle you too much, âshhh, itâs okay. âM gonna make it all better, okay?â
You nod weakly, leaning into Frank as he carries you into the bathroom. He carefully sets you down and grabs his med kit from under the sink, "I need to treat your injuries, okay? This will hurt."
You nod again. He definitely isn't lying about it hurting. The process is long and painful. Youâve managed to cut yourself quite deep in several places, but thankfully not enough for the emergency room. Frank speaks gently as he treats your wounds with military precision, "what happened, y/n?"
You wince as he applies antiseptic, his gentleness surprising you. Is this really Frank? "Do we have to do this now?"
"Gotta talk about it eventually, darlin'. Besides, need you to stay awake for me." Yeah, this is Frank. Always so practical. "Did you fall?" And that's also Frank. Always thinking the best of you.
"No...I...I broke the window on purpose," you should've lied, gone along with his explanation, taken the easy way out. Honestly, you're not sure why you didn't. It would be easy to blame the pain, but some part of you just doesn't want to hurt Frank anymore than you already have, "didn't think it would do...well, this."
"This is what broken glass does, doll,â his voice is calm, not a hint of anger present.
You blink, confused, "you're not mad?"
"No, y/n, I'm just disappointed," somehow that's worse, "thought you were smarter than this."
"I'm sorry."
Frank pauses as he wraps a bandage around your wrist, looking up at you for a long moment. His eyes are far too vulnerable when he finally speaks, "am I really that bad? Do you hate it here that much?"
"No, I just..." You stop, wincing as he starts to stitch up your biggest cut, "I don't...Frank, you kidnapped me-"
"That's not-"
You cut him off, "no, let me finish. You kidnapped me, Frank. It doesn't matter that I knew you before this, and it doesn't matter that you just want to keep me safe, and it doesn't even matter that I would've said yes to living with you if you had just asked me! This is insane! You can't keep me here forever, Frank. I'm losing my mind."
"You...you would've lived with me?"
You push away slightly from Frank once he finishes the final stitch, letting months of anger pour out of you, "yes, you idiot. I like you, Frank. You're a good guy and you take care of me. Hell, you were almost like a dad to me, but dad's don't fucking kidnap their kids."
"There are people in this city who will hurt you because you're important to me, y/n. I can't just let you go," you feel your anger increasing, but before you explode again, Frank continues, "but we could go somewhere else."
"What?"
"I have new identities for us and there's a place up north, a cabin. You could go outside, even interact with other people. We'd be safe. Free. Together."
You pause for a long moment, staring at Frank in shock. He has new identities...a cabin...he's been preparing for this. He...he wasn't going to keep you here forever, "well why the fuck didn't you just tell me that!?â
Frank laughs, "so that's a yes, then, doll? You'll go with me?"
Huh.
So maybe punching through a glass window is slightly lower on the list of 'things you shouldnât do when you're kidnapped by Frank fucking Castle' than you had originally expected. At least so far as it forces Frank to actually tell you things. You'll have to keep that in mind, though maybe you could punch a plastic window next time. Reduce the blood and all.
"Yes, Frank. I'll go with you."
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